"_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."

"It appears odd that you should know absolutely nothing about your own guests," remarked Lady Alice.

"Well, it would be odd, only I do," answered Sir Jekyl--"all one needs to know or ask. He presented his papers, and comes duly accredited--a letter from old Philander the Peer. Do you remember Peery still? I don't mind him; he was always a noodle, though in a question of respectability he's not quite nothing; and another from Bob Charteris--you don't know him--Attache at Paris; a better or more reliable quarter one could not hear from. I'll let you read them to-morrow; they speak unequivocally for his respectability; and I think the inference is even that he has a soul above 'busses. Here he is."

M. Varbarriere advanced with the air of a magician about to conduct a client to his magic mirror, toward Lady Alice before whom he made a low bow, having been presented the day before, and he inquired with a grave concern how she now felt herself and expressed with a sonorous suavity his regrets and his hopes.

Lady Alice, having had a good account of him, received him on the whole very graciously; and being herself a good Frenchwoman, the conversation flowed on agreeably.

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 a.n.a.lyse 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 antic.i.p.ated, 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."

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 a.s.sociations 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?"

"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 s.p.a.ce 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--

"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 ma.s.sive 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 a.s.sure 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."

From this time forth Lady Alice saw no return, of that faint but odious look of banter that had at first shocked and then irritated her; and fortified by the solemn a.s.surance he had given, she fell into a habit of referring it to some a.s.sociation unconnected with herself, and tried to make up for her attack upon him by an increased measure of courtesy.

Dwelling on those subjects that most interested Lady Alice, he and she grew more and more confidential, and she came, before they left the parlour, to entertain a high opinion of both the wisdom and the philanthropy of M. Varbarriere.