CHAPTER XVI.

A Rencontre in the Gallery.

It was time now; however, that they should make their appearance in the drawing-room; so, for the present, Varbarriere departed. He reached his dressing-room in an undefined state--a sort of light, not of battle fires, but of the dawn in his perspective; when, all on a sudden, came the image of a white-moustached, white-browed, grim old military man, glancing with a clear, cold eye, that could be cruel, from the first-class carriage window, up and down the platform of a gas-lit station, some hour and a half away from Slowton, and then sternly at his watch.

"The stupid old fogey!" thought Varbarriere, with a pang, as he revised his toilet hurriedly for the drawing-room. "Could that episode be evaded?"

There was no time to arrive at a clear opinion on this point, nor, indeed, to ascertain very clearly what his own wishes pointed at. So, in a state rather anarchic, he entered the gallery, _en route_ for the drawing-room.

Monsieur Varbarriere slid forth, fat and black, from his doorway, with wondrous little noise, his bulk considered, and instantly on his retina, lighted by the lamp at the cross galleries, appeared the figure of a tall thin female, attired in a dark cloak and bonnet, seated against the opposite wall, not many steps away. Its head turned, and he saw Donica Gwynn. It was an odd sort of surprise; he had just been thinking of her.

"Oh! I did not think as you were here, sir; I thought you was in Lunnon."

"Yet here I am, and you too, both unexpectedly." A suspicion had crossed his mind. "How d'ye do, Mrs. Gwynn?"

"Well, I thank you, sir."

"Want _me_ here?"

"No, sir; I was wrote for by missus please."

"Yes," he said very slowly, looking hard at her. "Very good, Mrs. Gwynn; have you anything to say to me?"

It would not do, of course, to protract this accidental talk; he did not care to be seen _tête-à-tête_ with Donica Gwynn in the gallery.

"No, sir, please, I han't nothing to say, sir," and she courtesied.

"Very well, Mrs. Gwynn; we're quite secret, hey?" and with another hard look, but only momentary, in her face, he proceeded toward the head of the staircase.

"Beg parding, sir, but I think you dropt something." She was pointing to a letter, doubled up, and a triangular corner of which stuck up from the floor, a few yards away.

"Oh! thank you," said Varbarriere, quickly retracing his steps, and picking it up.

A terrible fact for the world to digest is this, that some of our gentlemen attorneys are about the most slobbering men of business to be found within its four corners. They will mislay papers, and even lose them; they are dilatory and indolent--quite the reverse of our sharp, lynx-eyed, energetic notions of that priesthood of Themis, and prone to every sort and description of lay irregularity in matters of order and pink tape.

Our friend Pelter had a first-rate staff, and a clockwork partner beside in Crowe, so that the house was a very regular one, and was himself, in good measure, the fire, bustle, and impetus of the firm. But every virtue has its peccant correspondent. If Pelter was rapid, decided, daring, he was also a little hand-over-hand. He has been seen in a hurry to sweep together and crunch like a snowball a drift of banknotes, and stuff them so impressed into the bottom of his great-coat pocket! What more can one say?

This night, fussing out at his bed-room door, he plucked his scented handkerchief from his pocket, and, as he crossed his threshold, with it flirted forth a letter, which had undergone considerable attrition in that receptacle, and was nothing the whiter, I am bound to admit, especially about the edges, for its long sojourn there.

Varbarriere knew the handwriting and I. M. M. initials in the left-hand lower angle. So, with a nod and a smile, he popped it into his trowsers pocket, being that degree more cautious than Pelter.

Sir Jekyl was once more in high spirits. To do him justice, he had not affected anything. There had been an effervescence--he hardly knew how it came about. But his dangers seemed to be dispersing; and, at the worst, were not negotiation and compromise within his reach?

Samuel Pelter, Esq., gentleman attorney and a solicitor of the High Court of Chancery, like most prosperous men, had a comfortable confidence in himself; and having heard that Lady Alice Redcliffe was quarrelling with her lawyer, thought there could be no harm in his cultivating her acquaintance.

The old lady was sitting in a high-backed chair, very perpendicularly, with several shawls about and around her, stiff and pale; but her dusky eyes peered from their sunken sockets, in grim and isolated observation.

Pelter strutted up. He was not, perhaps, a distinguished-looking man--rather, I fear, the contrary. His face was broad and smirking, with a short, broad, blue chin, and a close crop of iron-grey on his round head, and plenty of crafty crow's-feet and other lines well placed about.

He stood on the hearthrug, within easy earshot of Lady Alice, whom he eyed with a shrewd glance, "taking her measure," as his phrase was, and preparing to fascinate his prey.

"Awful smash that, ma'am, on the Smather and Sham Junction," said Pelter, having fished up a suitable topic. "Frightful thing--fourteen killed--and they say upwards of seventy badly hurt. I'm no chicken, Lady Alice, but by Jove, ma'am, I can't remember any such casualty--a regular ca-tas-trophe, ma'am!"

And Pelter, with much feeling, gently lashed his paunch with his watch-chain and bunch of seals, an obsolete decoration, which he wore--I believe still wears.

Lady Alice, who glowered sternly on him during this speech, nodded abruptly with an inarticulate sound, and then looked to his left, at a distant picture.

"I trust I see you a great deal better, Lady Alice. I have the pleasure, I believe, to address Lady Alice Redcliffe--aw, haw, h'm," and the attorney executed his best bow, a ceremony rather of agility than grace. "I had the honour of seeing you, Lady Alice Redcliffe, at a shower-flow--flower-show, I mean--in the year--let me see--egad, ma'am, twelve--no--no--_thirteen_ years ago. How time does fly! Of course all them years--_thirteen_, egad!--has not gone for nothing. I dare say you don't perceive the alterations in yourself--no one does--I wish no one else did--that was always my wish to Mrs. P. of a morning--_my_ good lady, Mrs. Pelter--ha, ha, ha! Man can't tether time or tide, as the Psalm says, and every year scribbles a wrinkle or two. You were suffering, I heard then, ma'am, chronic cough, ma'am--and all that. I hope it's abated--I know it will, ma'am--my poor lady is a martyr to it--troublesome thing--very--awful troublesome! Lady Alice."

There was no reply, Lady Alice was still looking sternly at the picture.

"I remember so well, ma'am, you were walking a little lame then, linked with Lord Lumdlebury--(we have had the honour to do business occasionally for his lordship)--and I was informed by a party with me that you had been with Pincendorf. I don't think much of them jockeys, ma'am, for my part; but if it was anything of a callosity--"

Without waiting for any more, Lady Alice Redcliffe rose in solemn silence to her full height, beckoned to Beatrix, and said grimly--

"I'll change my seat, dear, to the sofa--will you help me with these things?"

Lady Alice glided awfully to the sofa, and the gallant Mr. Pelter instituted a playful struggle with Beatrix for possession of the shawls.

"I remember the time, miss, I would not have let you carry your share; but, as I was saying to Lady Alice Redcliffe--"

He was by this time tucking a shawl about her knees, which, so soon as she perceived, she gasped to Beatrix--

"Where's Jekyl?--I can't have _this_ any longer--call him here."

"As I was saying to you, Lady Alice, ma'am, our joints grow a bit rusty after sixty; and talking of feet, I passed the Smather and Slam Junction, ma'am, only two hours after the collision; and, egad! there were three feet all in a row cut off by the instep, quite smooth, ma'am, lying in the blood there, a pool as long as the passage up-stairs--awful sight!"

Lady Alice rose up again, with her eyes very wide, and her mouth very close, apparently engaged in mental prayer, and her face angry and pink, and she beckoned with tremulous fingers to Sir Jekyl, who was approaching with one of his provoking smiles.

"I say, Mr. Pelter, my friend Doocey wants you over there; they're at logger-heads about a law point, and I can't help them."

"Hey! if it's _practice_ I can give them a wrinkle maybe;" and away stumped the attorney, his fists in his pockets, smirking, to the group indicated by his host.

"Hope I haven't interrupted a conversation? What can I do for you?" said Sir Jekyl, gaily.

"What do you _mean_, Jekyl Marlowe--what _can_ you mean by bringing such persons here? What pleasure can you _possibly_ find in low and _dreadful_ society?--none of your family liked it. Where did you find that man? How on earth did you procure such a person? If I _could_--if I had been well enough, I'd have rung the bell and ordered your servant to remove him. I'd have gone to my bed-room, sir, only that even there I could not have felt safe from his intrusions. It's utterly intolerable and preposterous!"

"I had no idea my venerable friend, Pelter, could have pursued a lady so cruelly; but rely upon me, I'll protect you."

"I think you had better cleanse your house of such persons; at all events, I insist they shan't be allowed to make their horrible sport of me!" said Lady Alice, darting a fiery glance after the agreeable attorney.