"Well, then, I should p.r.o.nounce at once for the country," said Varbarriere.
"I"m so glad--that"s just what I said. I"m sure, said I, I should have Monsieur Varbarriere on my side if he were here. I"m so glad I was right. Did not you hear me say that?" said she, addressing Lady Jane Lennox, whose steady look, obliquely from across the table a little higher up, disconcerted her.
Lady Jane was not thinking of the debate, and asked in her quiet haughty way--
"What is it?"
"Did I not say, yesterday, that Monsieur Varbarriere would vote for the country, in our town or country argument, if he were here?"
"Oh! did you? Yes, I believe you did. I was not listening."
"And which side, pray, Lady Jane, would you have taken in that ancient debate?" inquired Varbarriere, who somehow felt constrained to address her.
"Neither side," answered she.
"What! neither town nor country--and how then?" inquired Varbarriere, with a shrug and a smile.
"I think there is as much hypocrisy and slander in one as the other, and I should have a new way--people living like the Chinese, in boats, and never going on sh.o.r.e."
Varbarriere laughed--twiddled a bit of bread between his finger and thumb, and leaned back, and looked down, still smiling, by the edge of his plate; and was there not a little flush under the dark brown tint of his face?
"That would be simply prison," e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Miss Blunket.
"Yes, prison; and is not anything better than liberty with its liabilities? Why did Lady Hester Stanhope go into exile in the East, and why do sane men and women go into monasteries?"
Varbarriere looked at her with an odd kind of interest, and sighed without knowing it; and he helped himself curiously to sweetbread, a minute later, and for a time his share in the conversation flagged.
Lady Jane, he thought, was looking decidedly better than when he left--very well, in fact--very well indeed--not at all like a person with anything pressing heavily on her mind.
He glanced at her again. She was talking to old Sir Paul Blunket in a bold careless way, which showed no sign of hidden care or fear.
"Have you been to town since?" inquired Sir Jekyl, who happened to catch Varbarriere"s eye at that moment, and availed himself of a momentary lull in what we term the conversation, to put his question.
"No; you think I have been pleasuring, but it was good honest business, I a.s.sure you."
"Lady Alice here fancied you might have seen the General, and learned something about his plans," continued Sir Jekyl.
"What General?--Lennox--eh?" inquired Varbarriere.
"Yes. What"s your question, Lady Alice?" said the Baronet, turning to that lady, and happily not observing an odd expression in Varbarriere"s countenance.
"No question; he has not been to London," answered the old lady, drawing her shawl which she chose to dine in about her, chillily.
"Is it anything _I_ can answer?" threw in Lady Jane, who, superbly tranquil as she looked, would have liked to pull and box Lady Alice"s ears at that moment.
"Oh no, I fancy not; it"s only the old question, when are we to see the General; is he coming back at all?"
"I wish anyone could help me to an answer," laughed Lady Jane, with a slight uneasiness, which might have been referred to the pique which would not have been unnatural in a handsome wife neglected.
"I begin to fear I shall leave Marlowe without having seen him," said Lady Alice, peevishly.
"Yes, and it is not complimentary, you know; he disappeared just the day before you came, and he won"t come back till you leave; men are such mysterious fellows, don"t you think?" said Sir Jekyl.
"It doesn"t look as if he liked her company. Did he ever meet you, Lady Alice?" inquired Sir Paul Blunket in his bluff way, without at all intending to be uncivil.
"_That_, you think, would account for it; much obliged to you, Sir Paul," said Lady Alice, sharply.
Sir Paul did not see it, or what she was driving at, and looked at her therefore with a grave curiosity, for he did not perceive that she was offended.
"Sir Paul has a way of hitting people very hard, has not he, Lady Alice?
and then leaving them to recover of themselves," said Sir Jekyl.
"There"s not a great deal of civility wasted among you," observed Lady Alice.
"I only meant," said Sir Paul, who felt that he should place himself right, "that I could not see why General Lennox should avoid Lady Alice, unless he was acquainted with her. There"s nothing in that."
"By-the-bye, Lady Alice," said Sir Jekyl, who apprehended a possible scene from that lady"s temper, and like a good shepherd wished to see his flock pasture peaceably together--"I find I can let you have any quant.i.ty you like of that plant you admired yesterday. I forget its name, and the Bishop says he has got one at the Palace with a scarlet blossom; so, perhaps, if you make interest with him--what do you say, my lord?"
So having engaged the good Bishop in floral conversation with that fiery spirit, the Baronet asked Sir Paul whether he believed all that was said about the great American cow; and what he thought of the monster parsnip: and thus he set him and Lady Alice ambling on different tracts, so that there was no risk of their breaking lances again.
CHAPTER XIII.
A Visitor in the Library.
The company were now pecking at those fruits over which Sir Jekyl was wont to chuckle grimly, making pleasant satire on his gardener, vowing he kept an Aladdin"s garden, and that his greengages were emeralds, and his gooseberries rubies.
In the midst of the talk, the grave and somewhat corpulent butler stood behind his master"s chair, and murmured something mildly in his ear.
"What"s his name?" inquired Sir Jekyl.
"Pullet, please, sir."
"Pullet! I never heard of him. If he had come a little earlier with a knife and fork in his back, we"d have given a good account of him."
His jokes were chuckled to Lady Alice, who received them drowsily.
"Where have you put him?"
"In the library, please, sir."
"What kind of looking person?"
"A middlish sort of a person, rayther respectable, I should say, sir; but dusty from his journey."