The Doctor, stumping away rapidly to his yellow door, and red and green twin bottles, in the village, was thinking how the deuce this misadventure of Sir Jekyl's had befallen. The Baronet's unlucky character was well known wherever he resided or had property.

"Who the devil did it, I wonder?" conjectured the Doctor. "Two o'clock at night. Some pretty fury with a scissors, maybe. We'll know time enough; these things always come out--always come out, egad! It's a shame for him getting into sc.r.a.pes at his time of life."

In the breakfast-parlour, very merry was the party then a.s.sembled, notwithstanding the absence of some of its muster-roll. Lady Jane Lennox, an irregular breakfaster, stood excused. Old Lady Alice was no more expected than the portrait of Lady Mary in her bed-room. General Lennox had business that morning, and was not particularly inquired after. Sir Jekyl, indeed, was missed--bustling, good-natured, lively--his guests asked after him with more than a conventional solicitude.

"Well, and how is papa now?" inquired Sir Paul, who knew what gout was, and being likely to know it again, felt a real interest in the Baronet's case. "No _acute_ pain, I hope?"

"I'm afraid he _is_ in pain, more than he admits," answered Beatrix.

"Tomlinson told me it's all in the--the extremity, though that's well.

Intelligent fellow, Tomlinson. Mine is generally what they call atonic, not attended with much pain, you know;" and he ill.u.s.trated his disquisition by tendering his ma.s.sive mulberry knuckles for the young lady's contemplation, and fondling them with the glazed fingers of the other hand, while his round blue eyes stared, with a slow sort of wonder, in her face, as if he expected a good deal in the way of remark from the young lady to mitigate his astonishment.

Lady Blunket, who was beside her, relieved this embarra.s.sment, and nodding at her ear, said--

"Flannel--_flannel_, chiefly. Sir Paul, there, his medical man, Doctor Duddle, we have great confidence in _him_--relies very much on warmth.

My poor father used to take Regent's--Regent's--I forget what--a _bottle_. But Doctor Duddle would not hear of Sir Paul there attempting to put it to his lips. Regent's--_what_ is it? I shall forget my own name soon. _Water_ is it? At all events he won't hear of it--diet and flannel, that's his method. My poor father, you know, died of gout, quite suddenly, at Brighton. Cuc.u.mber, they said."

And Lady Blunket, overcome by the recollection, touched her eyes with her handkerchief.

"Cuc.u.mber and salmon, it was, _I_ recollect," said Sir Paul, with a new accession of intelligence.

"But he pa.s.sed away most happily, Miss Marlowe," continued Lady Blunket.

"I have some verses of poor mamma's. _She_ was _very_ religious, you know; they have been very much admired."

"Ay--yes," said Sir Paul, "he was helped _twice_--very im_pru_dent!"

"I was mentioning dear mamma's verses, you remember."

Sir Paul not being quite so well up in this aspect of the case, simply grunted and became silent; and indeed I don't think he had been so loquacious upon any other morning or topic since his arrival at Marlowe.

"They are beautiful," continued Lady Blunket, "and so resigned. I was most anxious, my dear, to place a tablet under the monument, you know, at Maisly; a mural tablet, just like the Tuftons', you know; they are very reasonable, inscribed with dear mamma's verses; but I can't persuade Sir Paul, he's so poor, you know; but certainly, some day or other, I'll do it myself."

The irony about Sir Paul's poverty, though accompanied by a glance from her ladyship's pink eyes, was lost on that excellent man, who was by this time eating some hot broil.

Their judicious conversation was not without an effect commensurate with the rarity of the exertion, for between them they had succeeded in frightening poor Beatrix a good deal.

In other quarters the conversation was proceeding charmingly. Linnett was describing to Miss Blunket the exploits of a terrier of his, among a hundred rats let loose together--a narrative to which she listened with a pretty girlish alternation of terror and interest; while the Rev.

Dives Marlowe and old Doocey conversed earnestly on the virtues of colchic.u.m, and exchanged confidences touching their gouty symptoms and affections; and Drayton, a.s.sisted by an occasional parenthesis from that prodigious ba.s.so, Varbarriere, was haranguing Beatrix and Mrs. Maberly on pictures, music, and the way to give agreeable dinners; and now Beatrix asked old Lady Blunket in what way she would best like to dispose of the day. What to do, where to drive, an inquiry into which the other ladies were drawn, and the debate, a.s.sisted by the gentlemen, grew general and animated.

CHAPTER XXVI.

General Lennox appears.

In the midst of this animation the butler whispered in the ear of the Rev. Dives Marlowe, who, with a grave face, but hardly perceived, slid away, and met the Doctor in the hall.

"Aw--_see_--this is a--rather nasty case, I am bound to tell you, Mr.

Marlowe; he's in a rather critical state. He'll see you, I dare say, by-and-by, and I hope he'll get on satisfactorily. I hope he'll _do_; but I must tell you, it's a--it's a--serious _case_, sir."

"Nothing since?" asked Dives, a good deal shocked.

"Nothing since, sir," answered the Doctor, with a nod, and his eyebrows raised as he stood ruminating a little, with his fists in his pockets.

"But--but--you'll do _this_, sir, if you please--you'll call in some physician, in whom you have confidence, for I'll tell you frankly, it's not a case in which I'd like to be alone."

"It's very sudden, sir; whom do you advise?" said Dives, looking black and pallid.

"Well, you know, it ought to be _soon_. I'd like him at once--you can't send very far. There's Ponder, I would not desire better, if you approve. Send a fellow riding, and don't spare horse-flesh, mind, to Slowton. He'll find Ponder there if he's quick, and let him bring him in a chaise and four, and pay the fellows well, and they'll not be long coming. They'd better be quick, for there's something must be done, and I can't undertake it alone."

Together they walked out to the stable-yard, Dives feeling stunned and odd. The Doctor was reserved, and only waited to see things in train.

Almost while Dives pencilled his urgent note on the back of a letter, the groom had saddled one of the hunters and got into his jacket, and was mounted and away.

Dives returned to the house. From the steps he looked with a sinking heart after the man cantering swiftly down the avenue, and saw him in the distance like a dwindling figure in a dream, and somehow it was to him an effort to remember what it was all about. He felt the cold air stirring his dark locks, streaked with silver, and found he had forgot his hat, and so came in.

"You have seen a great deal of art, Monsieur Varbarriere," said Drayton, accosting that gentleman admiringly, in the outer hall, where they were fitting themselves with their "wide-awakes" and "jerries." "It is so pleasant to meet anyone who really understands it and has a feeling for it. You seem to me to lean more to painting than to statuary."

"Painting is the more popular art, because the more literal. The principles of statuary are abstruse. The one, you see, is a repet.i.tion--the other a translation. Colour is more than outline, and the painter commands it. The man with the chisel has only outline, and must render nature into white stone, with the _natural_ condition of being inspected from every point, and the _unnatural_ one, in solid anatomy, of immobility. It is a greater triumph, but a less effect."

Varbarriere was lecturing this morning, according to his lights, more copiously and _ex cathedra_ than usual. Perhaps his declamations and ant.i.thesis represented the constraint which he placed on himself, like those mental exercises which sleepless men prescribe to wrest their minds from anxious and exciting preoccupations.

"Do you paint, sir?" asked Drayton, who was really interested.

"Bah! never. I can make just a little scratching with my pencil, enough to remind. But paint--oh--ha, ha, ha!--no. 'Tis an art I can admire; but should no more think to practise than the dance."

And the ponderous M. Varbarriere pointed his toe and made a mimic pirouette, snapped his fingers, and shrugged his round shoulders.

"Alas! sir, the more I appreciate the dance, the more I despair of figuring in the ballet, and so with painting. Perhaps, though, _you_ paint?"

"Well, I just draw a little--what you call scratching, and I have tried a little tinting; but I'm sure it's very bad. I don't care about fools, of course, but I should be afraid to show it to anyone who knew anything about it--to you, for instance," said Drayton, who, though conceited, had sense enough at times to be a little modest.

"What is it?" said Miss Blunket, skipping into the hall, with a pretty little basket on her arm, and such a coquettish little hat on, looking so nave and girlish, and so remarkably tattooed with wrinkles. "Shall I run away--is it a secret?"

"Oh, no; we have no secrets," said Drayton.

"No secrets," echoed Varbarriere.

"And won't you tell? I'm such a curious, foolish, wretched creature;"

and she dropped her eyes like a flower-girl in a play.

What lessons, if we only could take them, are read us every hour! What a giant among liars is vanity! Here was this withered witch, with her baptismal registry and her looking-gla.s.s, dressing herself like a strawberry girl, and fancying herself charming!

"Only about my drawings--nothing."

"Ah, I know. Did Mr. Drayton show them to you?"

"No, Mademoiselle; I've not been so fortunate."