"I have certain circumstances to lay before you which nearly affect your honour."
The words smote his heart again with a tremendous augury; somehow they would not quite fit his hypothesis about the horse, but it might be something else. Was there any lady who might conceive herself jilted? Who could guess what it might be?
Jennie's letter he read then again in his box, with the smell of beef-steaks, the glitter of pewter pots, and the tread of waiters about him.
Yes, it was—he defied the devil himself to question it—an affectionate, loving, grateful letter. And Lady Alice had gone to Marlowe, and was staying there—Lady Alice Redcliffe, that stiff, austere duenna—Jane's kinswoman. He was glad of it, and often thinking of it. But, no—oh! no—it could not possibly refer to Jane: upon that point he had perfectly made up his mind.
Well, with his pen between his fingers, he considered when he could go, and where he should meet this vulgar Frenchman. He could not leave London to-morrow, nor next day, and the day following he had to give evidence on the question of compensation to that native prince, and so on: so at last he wrote, naming the nearest day he could command, and requesting, in a postscript which he opened the letter to add, that Monsieur Varbarriere would be so very good as to let him know a little more distinctly to what specific subject his letter referred, as he had in vain taxed his recollection for the slightest clue to his meaning; and although he was perfectly satisfied that he could not have the smallest difficulty in clearing up anything that could possibly be alleged against him as a soldier or a gentleman—having, he thanked Heaven, accomplished his career with honour—he yet could not feel quite comfortable until he heard something more explicit.
As the General, with this letter in his pocket, was hurrying to the post-office, the party at Marlowe were admiring a glorious sunset, and Monsieur Varbarriere was describing to Lady Jane Lennox some gorgeous effects of sunlight which he had witnessed from Lisbon on the horizon of the Atlantic.
The Bishop had already arrived, and was in his dressing-room, and Dives was more silent and thoughtful than usual.
Yes, the Bishop had arrived. He was venerable, dignified, dapper, with, for his time of life, a wonderfully shapely leg in his black silk stocking. There was in his manner and tones that suavity which reminds one at the same time of heaven and the House of Lords. He did not laugh. He smiled and bowed sometimes. There was a classical flavour in his conversation with gentlemen, and he sometimes conversed with ladies, his leg crossed horizontally, the ankle resting on his knee, while he mildly stroked the shapely limb I have mentioned, and murmured well-bred Christianity, to which, as well as to his secular narratives, the ladies listened respectfully.
Don't suppose he was a hypocrite or a Pharisee. He was as honest as most men, and better than many Christians. He was a bachelor, and wealthy; but if he had amassed a good deal of public money, he had also displayed a good deal of public spirit, and had done many princely and even some kind actions. His family were not presentable, making a livelihood by unmentionable practices, such as shop-keeping and the like. Still he cut them with moderation, having maintained affable though clandestine relations with his two maiden aunts, who lived and died in Thames Street, and having twice assisted a nephew, though he declined seeing him, who was a skipper of a Russian brig.
He was a little High-Church. But though a disciplinarian in ecclesiastical matters, and with notions about self-mortification, his rule as master of the great school he had once governed had been kindly and popular as well as firm. I do not know exactly what interest got him his bishopric. Perhaps it was his reputation only; and that he was thinking of duty, and his fasts, and waked in his cell one morning with a mitre on instead of his nightcap. The Trappist, mayhap, in digging his grave had lighted on a pot of gold.