"I never doubted it, my dear Sir Jekyl."
"And must you really leave me to-day?"
"No choice, I regret."
"It"s very unlucky. You can"t think how your going affects me. It seems so odd and unlucky, so depressing just now. I"d have liked to talk to you, though I"m in no danger, and know it. I"d like to hear what"s to be said, clergymen are generally so pompous and weak; and to be sure," he said, suddenly recollecting his brother, "there"s Dives, who is neither--who is a good clergyman, and learned. I say so, of course, my lord, with submission to you; but still it isn"t quite the same--you know the early a.s.sociation; and it makes me uncomfortable and out of spirits your going away. You don"t think you could possibly postpone?"
"No, my dear friend, quite impossible; but I leave you--tell him I said so--in excellent hands; and I"m glad to add, that so far as I can learn you"re by no means in a dying state."
The Bishop smiled.
"Oh! I know that," said Sir Jekyl, returning that cheerful expansion; "I know that very well, my Lord: a fellow always knows pretty well when he"s in anything of a fix--I mean his life at all in question; it is not the least that, but a sort of feeling or fancy. What does Doctor Pratt say it _is_?"
"Oh! gout, as _I_ understand."
"Ah! yes, I have had a good deal in my day. Do you think I could tempt you to return, maybe, when your business--this particular business, I mean--is over?"
The Bishop smiled and shook his head.
"I find business--mine at least--a very tropical plant; as fast as I head it down, it throws up a new growth. I was not half so hard worked, I do a.s.sure you, when I was better able to work, at the school, long ago. You haven"t a notion what it is."
"Well, but you"ll come back some time, not very far away?"
"Who knows?" smiled the Bishop. "It is always a temptation. I can say that truly. In the meantime, I shall expect to hear that you are much better. Young Marlowe--I mean Dives," and the Bishop laughed gently at the tenacity of his old school habits, "will let me hear; and so for the present, my dear Sir Jekyl, with many, many thanks for a very pleasant sojourn, and with all good wishes, I bid you farewell, and may G.o.d bless you."
So having shaken his hand, and kissing his own as he smiled another farewell at the door, the dignified and good prelate disappeared mildly from the room, Jekyl following him with his eyes, and sighing as the door closed on him.
As Sir Jekyl leaned back against his pillows, there arrived a little note, in a tall hand; some of the slim l"s, b"s, and so on, were a little spiral with the tremor of age.
"Lady Halice Redcliffe, Sir Jekyl, please sir, sends her compliments and hopes you may be able to read it, and will not leave for Warlock earlier than half-past one o"clock."
"Very well. Get away and wait in the outer room," said Sir Jekyl, flushing a little, and looking somehow annoyed.
"I hate the sight of her hand. It"s sealed, too. I wish that cursed old woman was where she ought to be; and she chooses _now_ because she knows I"m ill, and can"t bear worry."
Sir Jekyl twirled the little note round in his fingers and thumb with a pinch. The feverish pain he was suffering did not improve his temper, and he was intemperately disposed to write across the back of the unopened note something to this effect:--"Ill and suffering; the pleasure of your note might be too much for me; pray keep it till to-morrow."
But curiosity and something of a dread that discovery had occurred prompted him to open it, and he read--
"Having had a most painful interview with unhappy General Lennox, and endured mental agitation and excitement which are too much for my miserable health and nerves, I mean to return to Wardlock as early to-day as my strength will permit, taking with me, at his earnest request, _your victim_."
"D--n her!" interposed Sir Jekyl through his set teeth.
"I think you will see," he read on, "that this house is no longer a befitting residence for your poor innocent girl. As I am charged for a time with the care of the ruined wife of your friend and guest, you will equally see that it is quite impossible to offer my darling Beatrix an asylum at Wardlock. The Fentons, however, will, I am sure, be happy to receive her. She must leave Marlowe, of course, before I do. While here, she is under _my care_; but this house is no home for her; and you can hardly wish that _she_ should be _sacrificed_ in the ruin of the poor wife whom you have made an _outcast_."
"Egad! it"s the devil sent that fiend to torture me so. It"s all about, I suppose," exclaimed Sir Jekyl, with a gasp. "Unlucky! The stupid old fribble, to think of his going off with his story to that Pharisaical old tattler!"
The remainder of the letter was brief.
"I do not say, Jekyl Marlowe, that I regret your illness. You have to thank a merciful Providence that it is unattended with danger; and it affords an opportunity for reflection, which may, if properly improved, lead to some awakening of conscience--to a proper estimate of your past life, and an amendment of the s.p.a.ce that remains. I need hardly add, that an amended life involves reparation, so far as practicable, to _all_ whom you or, in your interest, _yours_ may have injured.
"In deep humiliation and sorrow,
"Alice Redcliffe."
"I wish you were in a deep pond, you plaguy old witch. That fellow, Herbert Strangways--Varbarriere--he"s been talking to her. I know what she means by all that cant."
Then he read over again the pa.s.sages about "your victim," and "General Lennox," your "friend and guest." And he knocked on the table, and called as well as he could--"Tomlinson," who entered.
"Where"s General Lennox?"
"Can"t say, Sir Jekyl, please, sir--"avn"t saw him to-day."
"Just see, please, if he"s in the house, and let him know that I"m ill, but very anxious to see him. You may say _very_ ill, do you mind, and only wish a word or two."
Tomlinson bowed and disappeared.
"Don"t care if he strikes me again. I"ve a word to say, and he _must_ hear it," thought Sir Jekyl.
But Tomlinson returned with the intelligence that General Lennox had gone down to the town, and was going to Slowton station; and his man, with some of his things, followed him to the Marlowe Arms, in the town close by.
In a little while he called for paper, pen, and ink, and with some trouble wrote an odd note to old General Lennox.
"GENERAL LENNOX,
"You must hear me. By ----," and here followed an oath and an imprecation quite unnecessary to transcribe. "Your wife is innocent as an angel! I have been the fiend who would, if he could, have ruined her peace and yours. From your hand I have met my deserts. I lie now, I believe, on my death-bed. I wish you knew the whole story. The truth would deify her and make you happy. I am past the age of romance, though not of vice. I speak now as a dying man. I would not go out of the world with a perjury on my soul; and, by ----, I swear your wife is as guiltless as an angel. I am ill able to speak, but will see and satisfy you. Bring a Bible and a pistol with you--let me swear to every answer I make you; and if I have not convinced you before you leave, I promise to shoot myself through the head, and save you from all further trouble on account of
"JEKYL MARLOWE."
"Now see, Tomlinson, don"t lose a moment. Send a fellow running, do you mind, and let him tell General Lennox I"m in pain--_very_ ill--mind and--and all that; and get me an answer; and he"ll put this in _his_ hand."
Sir Jekyl was the sort of master who is obeyed. The town was hardly three-quarters of a mile away. His messenger accomplished the distance as if for a wager.
The waiter flourished his napkin in the hall of the Marlowe Arms, and told him--
"No General, _nothing_ was there, as he heerd."
"Who do you want?" said the fat proprietress, with a red face and small eyes and a cap and satin bow, emerging from a side door, and superseding the waiter, who said--"A hofficer, isn"t it?" as he went aside.
"Oh! from the Manor," continued the proprietress in a conciliatory strain, recognising the Marlowe b.u.t.ton, though she did not know the man.
"Can I do anything?"
And she instinctively dropped a courtesy--a deference to the far-off Baronet; and then indemnifying herself by a loftier tone to the menial.
"A note for General Lennox, ma"am."
"General Lennox?--I know, I think, a millentery man, white-"aired and spare?"
"I must give it "im myself, ma"am, thankee," said he, declining the fat finger and thumb of the curious hostess, who tossed her false ringlets with a little fat frown, and whiffled--