Guy Deverell. Volume 1 of 2

M. Varbarriere spoke each of these little sentences in an isolated way, as a smoker might, although he was no longer smoking, between his puffs. "Therefore, not a word to him – no obligations – no intimacy. If he catches you by the hand, even by your little finger, in the way of friendship, he'll cling to it, so as so impede your arm, should it become necessary to exert it."

"I don't understand you, sir," said the young man, in a deferential tone, but looking very hard at him.

"You partly don't understand me; the nature of my direction, however, is clear. Observe it strictly."

There was a short silence here.

"I don't understand, sir, what covert hostility can exist between us; that is, why I should, in your phrase, keep my hand free to exert it against him."

"No, I don't suppose you do."

"And I can't help regretting that, if such are our possible relations, I should find myself as a guest under his roof," said the young man, with a pained and almost resentful look.

"You can't help regretting, and – you can't help the circumstance," vibrated his Mentor, in a metallic murmur, his cadaverous features wearing the same odd character of deep thought and apathy.

"I don't know, with respect to him– I know, however, how it has affected me – that I have felt unhappy, and even guilty since this journey commenced, as if I were a traitor and an impostor," said the young man, with a burst of impatience.

"Don't, sir, use phrases which reflect back upon me," said the other, turning upon him with a sudden sternness. "All you have done is by my direction."

The ample black waistcoat heaved and subsided a little faster than before, and the imposing countenance was turned with pallid fierceness upon the young man.

"I am sorry, uncle."

"So you should – you'll see one day how little it is to me, and how much to you."

Here was a pause. The senior turned his face again toward the fire. The little flush that in wrath always touched his forehead subsided slowly. He replaced his foot on the fender, and chose another cigar.

"There's a great deal you don't see now that you will presently. I did not want to see Sir Jekyl Marlowe any more than you did or do; but I did want to see this place. You'll know hereafter why. I'd rather not have met him. I'd rather not be his guest. Had he been as usual at Dartbroke, I should have seen all I wanted without that annoyance. It is an accident his being here – another, his having invited me; but no false ideas and no trifling chance shall regulate, much less stop, the action of the machine which I am constructing and will soon put in motion."

And with these words he lighted his cigar, and after smoking for a while he lowered it, and said —

"Did Sir Jekyl put any questions to you, with a view to learn particulars about you or me?"

"I don't recollect that he did. I rather think not; but Captain Drayton did."

"I know, Smithers?"

"Yes, sir."

"With an object?" inquired the elder man.

"I think not – merely impertinence," answered Guy Strangways.

"You are right – it is nothing to him. I do not know that even Marlowe has a suspicion. Absolutely impertinence."

And upon this M. Varbarriere began to smoke again with resolution and energy.

"You understand, Guy; you may be as polite as you please – but no friendship – nowhere – you must remain quite unembarrassed."

Here followed some more smoke, and after it the question —

"What do you think of the young lady, Mademoiselle Marlowe?"

"She sings charmingly, and for the rest, I believe she is agreeable; but my opportunities have been very little."

"What do you think of our fellow Jacque – is he trustworthy?"

"Perfectly, so far as I know."

"You never saw him peep into letters, or that kind of thing?"

"Certainly not."

"There is a theory which must be investigated, and I should like to employ him. You know nothing against him, nor do I."

"Suppose we go to our beds?" resumed the old gentleman, having finished his cigar.

A door at either side opened from the dressing-room, by whose fire they had been sitting.

"See which room is meant for me – Jacque will have placed my things there."

The young man did as he was bid, and made his report.

"Well, get you to bed, Guy, and remember – no friendships and no follies."

And so the old man rose, and shook his companion's hand, not smiling, but with a solemn and thoughtful countenance, and they separated for the night.

Next morning as the Rev. Dives Marlowe stood in his natty and unexceptionable clerical costume on the hall-door steps, looking with a pompous and, perhaps, a somewhat forbidding countenance upon the morning prospect before him, his brother joined him.

"Early bird, Dives, pick the worm – eh? Healthy and wise already, and wealthy to be. Slept well, eh?"

"Always well here," answered the parson. He was less of a parson and more like himself with Jekyl than with anyone else. His brother was so uncomfortably amused with his clerical airs, knew him so well, and so undisguisedly esteemed him of the earth earthy, that the cleric, although the abler as well as the better read man, always felt invariably a little sheepish before him, in his silk vest and single-breasted coat with the standing collar, and the demi-shovel, which under other eyes he felt to be imposing properties.

"You look so like that exemplary young man in Watt's hymns, in the old-fashioned toggery, Dives – the fellow with the handsome round cheeks, you know, piously saluting the morning sun that's rising with a lot of spokes stuck out of it, don't you remember?"

"I look like something that's ugly, I dare say," said the parson, who had not got up in a good temper. "There never was a Marlowe yet who hadn't ugly points about him. But a young man, though never so ugly, is rather a bold comparison – eh? seeing I'm but two years your junior, Jekyl."

"Bitterly true – every word – my dear boy. But let us be pleasant. I've had a line to say that old Moulders is very ill, and really dying this time. Just read this melancholy little bulletin."

With an air which seemed to say, "well, to please you," he took the note and read it. It was from his steward, to mention that the Rev. Abraham Moulders was extremely ill of his old complaint, and that there was something even worse the matter, and that Doctor Winters had said that morning he could not possibly get over this attack.

"Well, Dives, there is a case of 'sick and weak' for you; you'll have prayers for him at Queen's Chorleigh, eh?"

"Poor old man!" said Dives, solemnly, with his head thrown back, and his thick eyebrows elevated a little, and looking straight before him as he returned the note, "he's very ill, indeed, unless this reports much too unfavourably."

"Too favourably, you mean," suggested the Baronet.

"But you know, poor old man, it is only wonderful he has lived so long. The old people about there say he is eighty-seven. Upon my word, old Jenkins says he told him, two years ago, himself, he was eighty-five; and Doctor Winters, no chicken – just sixty – says his father was in the same college with him, at Cambridge, nearly sixty-seven years ago. You know, my dear Jekyl, when a man comes to that time of life, it's all idle – a mere pull against wind and tide, and everything. It is appointed unto all men once to die, you know, and the natural term is threescore years and ten. All idle – all in vain!"