diff options
| -rw-r--r-- | .gitattributes | 3 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 76927-0.txt | 16627 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 76927-h/76927-h.htm | 19000 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 76927-h/images/cover.jpg | bin | 0 -> 450257 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | LICENSE.txt | 11 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | README.md | 2 |
6 files changed, 35643 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/76927-0.txt b/76927-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..aefcaa7 --- /dev/null +++ b/76927-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,16627 @@ + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 76927 *** + + + + + + ONLY A CLOD + + A Novel + + BY THE AUTHOR OF + “LADY AUDLEY’S SECRET,” “AURORA FLOYD” + ETC. ETC. ETC. + + Stereotyped Edition + + LONDON + JOHN AND ROBERT MAXWELL + MILTON HOUSE, SHOE LANE, FLEET STREET + [_All rights reserved_] + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + + + + TO + + OCTAVE DELEPIERRE, F.S.A., LL.D. + + AND + + HIS CHARMING WIFE, CHARLOTTE + + This Story is Inscribed + + IN REMEMBRANCE OF MANY PLEASANT HOURS + PASSED WITH THEM. + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + + + + CONTENTS. + + + CHAP. PAGE + I. THE MASTER 5 + II. THE MAN 11 + III. TIDINGS OF HOME 14 + IV. TREDETHLYN’S LUCK 17 + V. COMING HOME 26 + VI. THE END OF THE WORLD 32 + VII. MAUDE HILLARY’S ADORERS 42 + VIII. AT THE CHATEAU DE BOURBON 50 + IX. JULIA DESMOND MAKES HERSELF AGREEABLE 53 + X. COLTONSLOUGH 62 + XI. A VERY OLD STORY 69 + XII. A MODERN GENTLEMAN’S DIARY 80 + XIII. CAUGHT IN THE TOILS 94 + XIV. VERY PRIVATE THEATRICALS 100 + XV. A COMMERCIAL CRISIS 108 + XVI. A DRAMA THAT WAS ACTED BEHIND THE SCENES 123 + XVII. SOMETHING LIKE FRIENDSHIP 139 + XVIII. POOR FRANCIS 143 + XIX. MR. HILLARY SPEAKS HIS MIND 151 + XX. AN EXPLANATION 156 + XXI. HARCOURT LOWTHER’S WELCOME 161 + XXII. TAKING IT QUIETLY 167 + XXIII. TIDINGS OF SUSAN 176 + XXIV. FRANCIS TREDETHLYN’S DISINTERESTED ADVISER 190 + XXV. THE ROAD TO RUIN 196 + XXVI. A CHILLING RECONCILIATION 203 + XXVII. SEEING A GHOST 211 + XXVIII. “OH, MY AMY! MINE NO MORE!” 219 + XXIX. ENTANGLEMENTS IN THE WEB 232 + XXX. THE TWO ANTIPHOLI 238 + XXXI. THE DIPLOMATIST’S POLICY 243 + XXXII. HARCOURT GATHERS HIS FIRST FRUITS 253 + XXXIII. ROSA’S REVELATIONS 266 + XXXIV. THE LADY AT PETERSHAM 279 + XXXV. A HASTY RECKONING 287 + XXXVI. POOR FRANK’S LETTER 296 + XXXVII. ELEANOR DROPS IN UPON ROSAMOND 302 + XXXVIII. GONE 310 + XXXIX. TOO LATE 317 + XL. AN IGNOMINIOUS FAILURE 322 + XLI. SUSAN’S GOOD NEWS 331 + XLII. A PERFECT UNION 341 + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + + + + ONLY A CLOD + + + + + CHAPTER I. + + THE MASTER. + + +Ensign Harcourt Lowther, of her Majesty’s 51st Light Infantry, sat +staring out into his garden at Port Arthur, watching a couple of convict +gardeners--who were going about their work with a monotonous and +exasperating deliberation of movement--and lamenting the evil fortune +that had stationed him in his present quarters. He had a great many +troubles, this elegant young ensign, who was, for the time being, +destined to bloom unseen, and waste the graces that ought to have +adorned Belgravia upon the desert air of the island of Tasmania. He had, +as he himself elegantly expressed it, no end of troubles. First and +foremost, his cigar would not draw; and as it was the last of a case of +choice cabanas, the calamity was not a small one. Secondly, there had +been a drought in fair Van Diemen’s Land for the last month or so. The +verdure was growing brown and leathery; the feathery masses of the tall +fern shrivelled at the edges like scorched paper; the stiff foliage of +the cedars seemed to rattle as it shook in the dry, dust-laden wind, and +the thermometer stood at a hundred and ten in the shade; true, it might +drop forty degrees or so at any moment, with the uprising of a moist +breeze from the sea, but, pending the arrival of that auspicious moment, +Mr Lowther was in a very bad temper. What had he done that he should be +stationed in a convict settlement, with no chance of any gain or glory +as compensation for his trials; with no one to speak to except a prosy +old police-magistrate or a puritanical chaplain; with nothing better to +look at than the eternal blue of the ocean, or a whaling vessel anchored +in the bay; with nothing to listen to except the clanking of hammers and +banging of timber and jingling of iron in the busy dockyard; with no +better enjoyment to hope for than a couple of days’ quail-shooting or +kangaroo-hunting in the interior? + +“If I’d been Desperate Bill the Burglar, or Slippery Steeve the Smasher, +I couldn’t be _much_ worse off,” he muttered, as he gave up the +unmanageable cigar, and went across the room to a table, upon which +there were some tobacco-jars and meerschaum pipes. “Now, then, +Tredethlyn, are those boots ready?” + +This question was addressed to an invisible some one, whose low +whistling of a jovial Irish air was audible from the adjoining room. + +“Yes, captain,” answered a cheery voice--the whistler had broken off in +the middle of the “wild sweet briery fence that around the flowers of +Erin dwells,”--“yes, captain, quite ready.” + +“That’s another aggravation,” exclaimed Mr. Lowther,--“the fellow will +call me captain; as if it wasn’t an underhand way of reminding me that +for a poor devil like me there’s no chance of promotion.” + +“But you see you _are_ captain here, Mr. Lowther,” said the whistler, +emerging from the adjoining chamber with a pair of newly-blacked +Wellingtons in his hand; “you’re captain, major, colonel, general, and +field-marshal, all in one here, with seventy men under your control, and +any amount of convicts to look after.” + +“If there’s one thing in the world that’s more excruciating than +another, it’s that fellow’s cheerfulness,” cried Mr. Lowther. I can +fancy the feelings of an elegant young French marquis of the _vieille +roche_, a scion of the Mortemars or Birons, buried alive in an +underground cell in the Bastille, with a lively commoner for his +companion--a cheerful _bourgeois_, who pretended to make light of his +situation, and eat his mouldy bread with a relish. “Now, then, +Tredethlyn, where are the boot-hooks? That fellow always forgets +something.” + +“That fellow,” otherwise Francis Tredethlyn, was a tall, stalwart +private soldier, of some seven-and-twenty years of age, who had been +honoured by an appointment to the post of valet and butler to Ensign +Harcourt Lowther. + +If the stalwart soldier had not been blest with one of those +imperturbable Mark-Tapley-like tempers, which resemble the patent +elliptic springs of a crack coachbuilder’s carriage, and can convey the +traveller unjolted and uninjured over the roughest roads in the journey +of life, he might have found his position as valet, major-domo, and +occasional confidant to Harcourt Lowther, far from the pleasantest berth +to be had in this great tempest-tossed vessel which we call the world. +But Francis Tredethlyn’s serenity of disposition was proof against the +most wearisome burden a man is ever called upon to bear--the +companionship of a discontented fellow-creature, and all the variable +moods, from a feverish cynical kind of gaiety to a dreary and +ill-tempered gravity, which were engendered out of that perpetual +discontent. + +But Frank Tredethlyn bore it all cheerfully; with a manly, open-hearted +cheerfulness that had no taint of sycophancy. If the young ensign wanted +to talk to him, well and good--he was ready and willing to talk about +any thing or every thing; but he had his own sentiments upon most +subjects, which sentiments were of a very fast colour, and did not take +any reflected hue from Mr. Lowther’s aristocratic opinions. + +It is not to be supposed that Francis Tredethlyn, private soldier and +valet, had any claims to intellectual equality with his master. The +private wrote a fair commercial hand, very bold and big and +resolute-looking; could read aloud without stumbling ignominiously over +the long words; could cast up accounts; and, looking back at the history +of the universal past, saw glimmering faintly over a sea of darkness and +oblivion such beacon-lights as a Norman invasion; a solemn meeting on +the flat turf of Runnymede; a Reformation, with a good deal of +martyr-burning and head-chopping attendant thereupon; a fiery hook-nosed +Dutch liberator, a Jacobite rebellion, and a Reform Bill. Beyond these +limits the attainments of Mr. Tredethlyn did not extend; and the ensign, +when grumbling at the general discomfort of his life, was apt to say +that it was a hard thing to be flung for companionship on a fellow who +was nothing but a boor and a clod. + +Mr. Lowther treated his valet very much as a spoiled child treats her +doll; sometimes it pleased him to be monstrously cordial and familiar +with his attendant, while at another time he held Francis aloof by a +haughty reserve of manner, beyond which barrier the other made no effort +to penetrate. + +“The fellow does possess that merit,” Harcourt Lowther said sometimes, +“he knows how to keep his place.” + +The fact of the matter is, the valet was infinitely less dependent upon +his master’s companionship than his master upon his. There were a +hundred ways in which Francis Tredethlyn could amuse himself; and there +was not a cloud in the sky, a wave of the sea, a leaf in the garden, out +of which he could not take some scrap of pleasure, and which had not a +deeper and truer meaning for him than for the idle young officer who lay +yawning upon his narrow couch with his feet in the air, and nothing +better to do than to admire the shape of his boots, obtained on credit +from a confiding West-end tradesman. Francis had that wide sympathy with +his fellow-creatures which is a special attribute of some men; and was +on the friendliest possible terms with the two convict gardeners, both +of whom had achieved some renown as the most incorrigible and execrable +specimens of the criminal class. Every dog in the little settlement +fawned upon Frank Tredethlyn, and ran to rub his head against his knees, +and slaver his hand with its flapping tongue. He had made a kennel for +two or three of these canine acquaintances in a shady corner of the big +garden, much to the disgust and annoyance of the ensign, who only cared +for such dogs as are calculated to assist the sports of their lord and +master. Staghounds and beagles, foxhounds and terriers, setters, +pointers, and retrievers, clever ratting Scotch terriers, well-bred and +savage bulls, even little short-eared toy terriers, or fawn-coloured and +black-muzzled pugs, were all very well placed in the scheme of creation: +but Mr. Lowther could find no explanation for the existence of those +mongrel creatures who seem to have nothing to do in the world but to +attach themselves with slavish devotion to some brutal master, or to lie +in the most disreputable courts and alleys of a city in hot weather and +catch flies. + +But, somehow or other, Francis Tredethlyn seemed generally to do pretty +much as he liked, in spite of military despotism and Mr. Harcourt +Lowther. The dogs were unmolested in their shady corner; and the ensign +was so good as to say that a little aviary of wicker-work and wire, +which Tredethlyn constructed in his leisure hours, and duly filled with +tiny feathered inhabitants, that kept up a faint twittering in the +sunshine, was an improvement to the cottage. Francis was very handy, and +could do wonders with a hammer and a handful of tin tacks; and was, +indeed, altogether a great acquisition to his master, as Mr. Corbett, +the police-magistrate, sometimes remarked to Harcourt Lowther. + +“Yes,” Harcourt answered, indifferently, “the fellow is a cut above most +of his class. He is a Cornishman, it seems, and the son of a small +farmer in that land of Tre, Pol, and Pen; and he tells me that he has an +old miser uncle who is supposed to be preternaturally rich. Egad! I wish +I had such an uncle! All my uncles are misers for the matter of that; +but then, unluckily, the poor devils are misers because they’re +preternaturally poor.” + + +Mr. Lowther stood before the little looking-glass, in the sunny window, +admiring himself, while Francis Tredethlyn helped him on with his coat. +He was going to dine with Mr. Corbett the magistrate, and to spend the +evening in the society of Miss Corbett, who had come out to the colony +with the idea that general officers and wealthy judges would be waiting +on the shore ready to conduct her from the place of debarcation to the +hymeneal altar, and had been a little soured by the disenchantment which +had too surely followed her arrival. She was a gushing damsel of +thirty-five, very tall and square, and of a prevailing drab colour; and +she played tremendous variations of shrill Scottish melodies on a piano +which had been warranted to preserve its purity of tone in any climate, +but upon which the nearest thing to an harmonious octave was a wild +stretch of thirteen notes. Mr. Lowther must have been very low in the +world when he had nothing better to do than to sit by Miss Corbett’s +piano while she banged and rattled at the numerous disguises under which +“Kinloch of Kinloch” appeared in a fantasia of twelve pages, now +prancing jauntily in triplets, now rushing up and down the piano in +chromatic scales, now scampering wildly in double arpeggios, now banging +himself out of all knowledge in common chords, or wailing dismally in a +hideous minor. Fate had done its worst for Ensign Lowther, when he had +no better amusement than to lounge by the side of that ill-used old +instrument, staring reflectively at the thin places on the top of Miss +Corbett’s drab-coloured head. + +Harcourt Lowther stood before the glass admiring his handsome face, +while his valet brushed the collar of his coat. Well, he had a right to +admire himself! If Providence had treated him badly, capricious Mother +Nature, who, like any other frivolous-minded parent, elects her prime +favourites without rhyme or reason, had been very bountiful to him in +the matter of an aquiline nose, a finely-modelled mouth and chin, and +deep womanish blue eyes, with a shimmer of gold on their lashes. No one +could deny Mr. Lowther’s claim to be considered a remarkably handsome +man, an elegant young man, a very agreeable and accomplished gentleman. +The world, of course, had nothing to do with that rougher edge of the +ensign’s character which he turned to his valet Francis Tredethlyn in +his cottage at Port Arthur. + +He went out presently, swinging his thin cane, and whistling all the +triplets and cadences of an elaborate _scena_; he was an amateur +musician and an amateur artist, playing more or less upon two or three +different instruments, and painting more or less in half-a-dozen +different styles. He could ride across country to the astonishment of +burly Leicestershire squires, who were inclined to think contemptuously +of his small waist and pretty blue eyes, his amber-tinted, jockey-club +perfumed whiskers, trim tops, and unstained “pink.” He was a good shot, +and long ago at Harrow had been renowned as a cricketer. He spoke three +or four modern languages, and had that dim recollection of his classic +studies which is sufficient for a man of the world who knows how to make +much out of little. He was altogether a very accomplished gentleman; but +with him intellectual pursuits were a means rather than an end, and he +took very little pleasure in the society of books or bookmen. He wanted +to be in the world, foremost in the perpetual strife, amid the crash of +drums and trumpets, the roaring of cannon, and glitter of emblazoned +standards flaunting gallantly in the wind. He wanted to be one of the +conquerors in the universal tournament, and to ride up to the Queen of +Beauty flushed and triumphant after the strife, to be admired and +caressed. This is why the inaction of his present existence was so +utterly intolerable to him. He had a supreme belief in himself, and in +the indisputable nature of his right to the best and brightest amongst +earth’s prizes. The time must be indeed out of joint in which there was +nothing better for such as he than a dreary convict settlement in the +island of Tasmania. + +Unluckily, the time _was_ out of joint. Robert Lowther, of Lowther Hall, +Hampshire, had given his younger son an aristocratic name and a +gentlemanly education; and then, having nothing more to bestow upon him, +had been forced to leave the lad to fish for himself in the troubled +waters of life. The prospects of the junior had always been more or less +sacrificed to those of the senior of Robert Lowther’s two sons, and +Harcourt bore a hearty grudge against his father and his brother on this +account. Plainly told that he was to expect no more assistance from the +parent purse, the young man had elected to become a barrister; but after +a three years’ course of reading, in which the cultivation of light +literature and modern languages was diversified by a slight sprinkling +of legal study, he had grown heartily sick of his shabbily-furnished +third floor in Hare Court, Temple, and had gladly accepted the price of +a commission in one of Her Majesty’s light infantry regiments from an +affectionate maiden aunt, believing that the regiment would be speedily +under orders for India, where glory and loot no doubt awaited a dashing +young soldier with a very high opinion of his own merits. + +Unhappily for Mr. Lowther the regiment did not go to India; but he and +his captain, with a detachment of seventy rank and file, embarked at +Deptford on a misty morning in October, in charge of 450 convicts bound +for Hobart Town. At the time of which I write the ensign had been nearly +a twelvemonth in Van Diemen’s Land, and before him lay the prospect of +another dreary year which must elapse before there was much chance of +his seeing a change of quarters. There are some people who take their +troubles with a cheerful countenance and make the best of a bad bargain; +but Mr. Lowther was not one of them. He had begun to grumble before the +convict ship left Deptford; and he had gone on complaining, with very +little intermission, until to-day, and was likely so to continue until +the end of the chapter. Napoleon at St. Helena could scarcely have felt +his exile more keenly; nor could that fallen hero have more bitterly +resented the injustice of his fate than Harcourt Osborne Lowther, who +believed that there must be something radically wrong in a universe in +which there was no provision of 40,000_l._ or so a year for an elegant +young man with a perfect aquiline nose, a clear ringing touch upon the +piano, a trumpet tone on the flute, a talent for taking pen-and-ink +portraits that were equal to anything of Count D’Orsay’s, and an +irreproachable taste in waistcoats. + +He went out now in very tolerable spirits; first, because he had worked +himself into a good temper by grumbling to himself and Tredethlyn all +day; secondly, because he was going to have a good dinner and some rare +old tawny port, which was the boast of Mr. Corbett the magistrate; and +thirdly, because he was going to be admired; and in a Tasmanian +settlement even the worship of a young lady with bony fingers and +drab-coloured eyes and hair is not altogether a despicable tribute. + +“When I hear ‘Kinloch of Kinloch’ tortured out of all semblance of +himself upon that wretched piano, I let myself go somehow or other,” +thought the ensign, “and I fancy myself standing behind Maude Hillary’s +Broadwood in the long drawing-room at Twickenham. Twickenham! Shall I +ever see Twickenham again, and Maude Hillary, and the twinkling light +upon the river, and the low branches of the chestnuts, the sedgy banks, +the lazy boats, the lights up at the ‘Star and Garter’ glimmering across +the dusky valley? Shall I ever see that fair civilised land again? or +shall I die in this condemned and accursed hole?--die, forgotten and +unlamented, before I have made any mark in the world?” + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + + + + CHAPTER II. + + THE MAN. + + +While Mr. Lowther went to eat his dinner with the hospitable magistrate, +Francis Tredethlyn did his work briskly; folding his master’s coats and +waistcoats, brushing boots, clearing away little heaps of cigar-ash, and +picking up torn scraps of paper and open books cast recklessly upon the +floor by a reader who was too badly disposed towards a world that had +ill-treated him to find the opinions of any author entirely to his +taste. + +The soldier whistled that lively melody in praise of Erin’s daughters +all the time, and achieved his task with the rapid neatness of a male +Cinderella specially endowed by some fairy godmother; and when Mr. +Lowther’s humble sitting-room and bed-room were restored to perfect +order, his valet retired to his own little apartment, which was a +shed-like chamber at the back of the cottage, and a kind of compromise +between a dressing-room and a wash-house. Here Mr. Tredethlyn made his +toilet, which consisted of a rapid plunge of his head and throat into a +tub of cold water, some brisk operations with a cake of yellow soap, +accompanied by sputtering and whizzing noises of an alarming character, +a little fierce rubbing down with a coarse towel, and the smart +application of a stiff and implacable-looking hair-brush. When this was +done, Francis Tredethlyn put on his jacket, and went out into the garden +to smoke his pipe and converse with the convicts. + +Now that the gifts of nature had been enhanced by the adornments of art, +the ensign’s valet was by no means a bad-looking fellow. He was tall, +broad-shouldered, and muscular in build as a modern Hercules. His +closely cut black hair revealed the outline of a well-shaped head well +placed upon his shoulders. Under his dark, almost gipsy-brown, skin was +a rich crimson glow, which deepened or faded under the influence of any +powerful emotion. His nose was straight, but rather short, and of no +particular type; but a sculptor would have told you there was a special +beauty about the curve of his full open nostrils, and Honoré de Balzac +would have informed you that a man with that kind of nostril is +generally good for something in this world. His forehead was low, +stronger in the perceptive than in the reflective organs; his eyes were +of a clear grey, darkened by the shadow of thick black lashes. He was a +handsome soldier; he would have made a handsome gladiator in the old +Roman days; a noble-looking brigand, in the days when brigands were +chivalrous; a dashing highwayman, in the age when Claude Duval rode +gaily to his death on Tyburn tree; a glorious sporting farmer down in +Leicestershire to-day; but no power upon this earth could have +transformed him into an elegant West-end lounger, an accomplished +dawdler in fashionable drawing-rooms, or a “gentleman” in the modern +acceptation of the word. + +He went out into the garden now, to smoke his pipe of bird’s-eye and +talk to the convict gardeners, who brightened at his approach, and +deliberately planted themselves in a convenient position upon their +spades, in order to converse with him. I am sorry to say that he was as +much at home in their society as if they had been the most estimable of +mankind, and that he encouraged them to talk freely of their burglarious +experiences in the Old World. Was there not a smack of brigandage and +adventure in these experiences, and even a dash of chivalry, according +to the two men’s own showing? for they told stories of encounters in +which they shone out quite with heroic lustre from their rooted +objection to cut an elderly lady’s throat, and their gallant bearing +towards a high-minded young damsel who had led them from room to room in +her father’s mansion, and had pointed with her own fair hands to the +whereabouts of the family valuables. Francis Tredethlyn sat upon the +trunk of a fallen acacia, watching the lazy clouds in the still evening +sky, and smoking his pipe, long after the two convicts had struck work +and retired to their own quarters. He sat smoking and musing; thinking, +as I suppose a man so banished must think, of that other far-away world +which he had left behind him; and which it seemed to him sometimes, in +such still moments as these, that he should never see again. + +“So far away, so very far away!” he mused. “I wonder how the little +village street upon the hill is looking now? It’s winter time now there, +or getting towards winter time anyhow. I can fancy it of an evening, +with the lights twinkling in the low shop windows, the big castle-gate +frowning down upon the poor little street; the churchyard, where Susy +and I have played, all dark and lonesome in the winter night; and Susy +herself--pretty little dark-eyed Susy--sitting by the hearth in the big +kitchen at Tredethlyn, stitch, stitch, stitch, while the old man nods +and snores over his newspaper. Poor little Susy, what a hard life it is +for her; and the old man as rich as that king of somewhere--Crœsus, +don’t they call him?--if his neighbours are to be believed. Poor little +Susy! is she fond of me, I wonder? and will she be pleased to marry me, +if ever I’m able to go back, and say, ‘Susy, the best I could do, after +running away and ’listing, was to save up money to buy my discharge, so +that I might come home again to claim the old promise--for better for +worse, for richer or poorer’? We couldn’t well be poorer than we should +be just at first; for, of course, the old chap would turn rusty, and cut +Susy off with a shilling; but who cares for that?” thought Francis +Tredethlyn, snapping his fingers in the independence of his spirit. “If +Susy loves me, and I love Susy, and we’re both young and strong and +industrious, what’s to prevent us getting on in the world, without +anybody’s money to help us?” + +The soldier smoked another pipe in a dreamy reverie, in which his +thoughts still hovered about one familiar spot in his native country--a +long, low, stone-built farmhouse, standing alone upon a broad plateau of +bare moorland, very dreary of aspect in winter,--a dismal, +ghastly-looking homestead, in which the ornamental had been sacrificed +to the useful,--a gaunt, naked-looking dwelling-place, upon whose +decoration or improvement a ten-pound note had not been expended within +the memory of man,--a house which had gone down through three +generations of close-fisted, cross-grained owners, and which had grown +uglier and drearier under the rule of each generation. + +This was the habitation which stood as clearly out against the vague +background of Francis Tredethlyn’s dreams as if it had been palpably +present upon the rising ground on the other side of the bay. This was +the house; and in the low narrow doorway, fronting the desolate expanse +of stunted brown grass, the soldier saw the slender figure of a girl--a +girl with dark, gentle eyes, and a quaker-like dress of coarse brown +stuff,--a girl who stood with her hand shading her eyes, looking at the +distant figure of an old man plodding homeward in the winter twilight. +He had so often seen her thus, that it was only natural the picture of +her should present itself to his mind to-night, as his thoughts wandered +homeward. He was so far away from this girl and the familiar place in +which she lived, that it seemed almost impossible to him that he could +ever see her again, or tread the well-known pathways along which he had +so often walked by her side. He thought of her almost as the dead may +think of the living--if they do think of us. + +“Poor little Susy! I wonder whether she loved me--whether she loves me +still? I wasn’t like some of your lovers,--I wasn’t one of your +desperate fellows. I had no hot fits, or cold fits, or jealous fits, or +such like, and there are some folks that might say I was never in love +at all. But I was very fond of Susy--poor little tender-hearted Susy! I +used to think of her, somehow, as if she had been my little sister. I +think of her like that now.” + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + + + + CHAPTER III. + + TIDINGS OF HOME. + + +It was late when Mr. Lowther came home from his friend the magistrate’s. +The faint flush that lighted up his face, and the unwonted lustre of his +eyes, bore testimony to the merits of Mr. Corbett’s tawny port. All +Sandemann’s choicest vintages would not have tempted Harcourt Lowther to +sit listening to a prosy old magistrate’s civil-service experiences, in +Europe; but on this side of the world a bottle of good wine and a +tolerably civilised companion were not entirely to be despised. The +ensign was in a very good temper when he came into the little parlour, +where a swinging lamp burned brightly, and where a tobacco-jar, a +meerschaum, a case-bottle of Schiedam, a tumbler, and a jug of water, +were set upon the table ready for the master of the domain. Mr. Lowther +was in excellent temper, and inclined to be especially civil to his +valet. + +“No Schiedam to-night, Tredethlyn,” he said, throwing himself into the +wicker easy-chair, and stretching his feet upon a smaller chair that +stood opposite to him; “I’ve had a little too much of that old fellow’s +port. Devilish good stuff it is too, if it hadn’t a tendency to spoil a +man’s complexion, and concentrate itself in his nose. I’ll take a pipe, +though. Just give me a light, will you, Tredethlyn?” + +He sat in a lazy attitude, with his head thrown back against the rail of +the chair, and daintily arranged the stray shreds of tobacco in the bowl +of his pipe with the delicate tip of his little finger; while the +private lighted a long strip of folded paper and handed it to his +master. + +“Oh, by the bye,” muttered Mr. Lowther, speaking with his mouth shut +upon the amber mouthpiece of his pipe, “I’ve got some news for you, +Tredethlyn. Just put your hand in my coat-pocket, and take out the paper +you’ll find there. Goodness knows what it means,--a legacy of fifty +pounds or so, I suppose. Anyhow, you’re a lucky devil. I should be glad +enough to get even such a windfall as that; but I never hear of anything +to my advantage.” + +Francis Tredethlyn had taken the paper from his master’s pocket by this +time; it was an old copy of the “Times;” and he presented it to the +ensign, but the other pushed it away impatiently. + +“_I_ don’t want it,” he said; “I think I read every line of it while old +Corbett was snoring after dinner. Look at the third advertisement in the +second column of the Supplement.” + +The soldier did as he was directed, and read the advertisement aloud +very slowly and in a tone of unmitigated wonder. + +“Francis Tredethlyn, nephew of the late Oliver Tredethlyn, of Tredethlyn +Grange, near Landresdale, Cornwall. If the above-mentioned will apply to +Messrs. Krusdale and Scardon, solicitors, 29, Verulam Buildings, Gray’s +Inn, he will hear of something to his advantage.” + +“The late Oliver Tredethlyn!” cried Francis, staring blankly at the +paper; “my uncle’s dead, then!” + +“Was he alive when you left England?” asked the ensign. + +“He was alive when I left Cornwall. Dead! my uncle Oliver?” the young +man said, in a dreamy voice; “and I pictured him to-night in my fancy, +plodding home from the outlying lands, as hale and stern and sturdy as +ever. Dead! and he may have been dead ever so long, for all this tells +me,” added Francis Tredethlyn, pointing to the advertisement. + +“You were uncommonly fond of your uncle, I suppose, from the way you +talk of him,” Mr. Lowther remarked, carelessly. He was in good humour +to-night, and ready to talk about anything,--inclined to take almost an +interest in the affairs of another man, and that man his valet! + +“Fond of him!” exclaimed Francis Tredethlyn, “fond of my uncle Oliver! I +don’t think the creature ever lived that was fond of him, or whose love +he’d have cared to have. He liked folks to obey him, and cut things as +close as he wanted ’em cut; but beyond that, he didn’t care what they +thought or what they did. I suppose he did love his daughter though, +after a fashion, but it was a very hard fashion. No, sir, I wasn’t +particularly fond of my uncle Oliver Tredethlyn, but I’m struck all of a +heap by the news of his death coming upon me so sudden; and I’m thinking +of the effect that it will have on my cousin Susy,--she’s all alone in +the world now,--poor little Susy!” + +The ensign looked up quickly. “Susy!” he said, “who the deuce is your +cousin Susy?” + +“She’s my uncle Oliver’s only daughter, sir; his only child, too, for +the matter of that. We were engaged to be married, sir; but things went +wrong with me at home, and I ran away and enlisted.” + +“Ah! How long ago did all that happen?” + +“Nearly five years, sir.” + +“And you’ve kept up some sort of a correspondence with your cousin since +then, I suppose?” + +“Not I, sir; her father wasn’t the man to let her write a letter that +would cost a lump of money for postage, or to write any letter to such a +scamp as me, either; and poor Susy was too close watched, and too +obedient into the bargain, to write without his leave. _I’ve_ written to +her now and then, but I’ve had no news from home since the day I left +it, except this that you’ve brought me to-night.” + +“And I suppose your uncle has left you a legacy?” + +“I suppose so, sir; it isn’t likely to be much anyhow, for I never was +any great favourite of his.” + +“You’d better write to these lawyers, though. There’s a mail to-morrow; +bring out your desk, and write at once.” + +“Here, sir?” + +“Yes, here.” + +Francis Tredethlyn hesitated for a moment, but seeing that his master +was resolute, he brought a clumsy old-fashioned mahogany desk from his +chamber at the back of the cottage, and seated himself at a corner of +the table with the desk before him. He had placed himself at a very +respectful distance from Mr. Harcourt Lowther; but that gentleman, +having finished his pipe, got up, and began to walk slowly up and down +the room, while his valet squared his elbows and commenced a laborious +inscription of his address at the top of the page. + +“Tell them that you are Francis Tredethlyn, nephew of Oliver Tredethlyn, +and that you can bring forward plenty of witnesses to prove your +identity, and so on, as soon as you can get back to England. I don’t +suppose they’ll let you have your legacy till they see you. Ask them to +tell you what the amount is, at any rate.” + +Mr. Lowther did not confine himself to giving his valet these hints upon +the composition of his letter; he was good enough to stand behind the +young man’s chair, and look over his shoulder as he wrote; but as +Francis Tredethlyn’s penmanship was not of a very rapid order, the +ensign’s eyes soon wandered from the page, and straying to an open +division of the desk, lighted on something that looked like a +water-coloured sketch, covered with silver paper. + +“Why, you sly dog,” he cried with a laugh, “you’ve got a woman’s picture +in your desk!” + +Francis Tredethlyn blushed and looked very sheepish as he took the +little water-coloured sketch out of its silver-paper envelope and handed +it submissively to his master. + +“It’s my cousin Susan’s portrait, sir,” he said; “it was taken by a +travelling artist, who came down our way one summer. It isn’t much of a +likeness, but it pleases me to look at it sometimes, for I can fill up +all that’s wanting in the face out of my own mind, and see my cousin +smiling at me, as if I was at home again.” + +Mr. Lowther stood behind his servant’s chair looking at the portrait, +while the soldier went on writing. It was not the work of a very +brilliant artist; there was none of those deliciously careless touches, +none of that transparent lightness, which a clever painter’s +manipulation would have displayed. It was a stiff, laborious little +portrait of a girl with hazel brown eyes and smooth banded brown hair, +and an innocent childish mouth, rosy and fresh and smiling as a summer’s +morning in the country. It was only the picture of a country girl, who +seemed to have looked shyly at the artist as he painted her. + +“So that’s your cousin Susy,” said Mr. Lowther, laying the picture down +upon the table by Tredethlyn’s elbow. “I shan’t stop while you address +your letter, and I don’t want any thing more, so you can go to bed at +once if you like. Good night.” + +The ensign took a candle from a little side-table as he spoke, lighted +it at the lamp above Tredethlyn’s head, and went out of the room. +Francis finished his letter, and placed it on the mantelpiece, where +some letters of his master’s were lying ready for the next day’s mail. +He did not go to bed at once, though it was late, and he was free to do +so, but sat for some time with his cousin Susan Tredethlyn’s portrait in +his hand, looking at the girlish face, and thinking of the changes that +had come to pass in his old home. + +“The old chap was hard and stern with her, and her life was a dull one, +poor little girl,” thought the soldier; “and she’ll have a fine fortune, +I suppose, now he’s gone; but somehow I don’t like to think of her left +lonely in the world; she’s too young and too pretty, and too innocent +for that. Innocent! why, bless her poor tender little heart, I don’t +think she knows there’s such a thing as wickedness upon this earth.” + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + + + + CHAPTER IV. + + TREDETHLYN’S LUCK. + + +Francis Tredethlyn had to wait a very long time before there could be +any possibility of a letter from the Gray’s Inn solicitors, but he +endured the delay with perfect tranquillity of mind; and if either of +the two men seemed anxious for the arrival of the letter, that man was +Harcourt Lowther, and not Francis Tredethlyn. The ensign had a trick of +alluding to his servant’s good fortune whenever things went especially +ill with himself. + +“Here am I without a friend in the world to lend me a five-pound note,” +he would remark, impatiently, “and there are you with a chance of a nice +little legacy from that old uncle of yours. I shouldn’t wonder if you +stand in for four or five hundred at the least.” + +“I don’t think it, sir,” the valet always answered, coolly. “I’ve heard +our neighbours say, that what with farming, what with mining, and +dabbling a good bit with funds and railway shares, and such-like, my +uncle must be as rich as a Jew; but for all that, I don’t look to be +much better off for any thing that he’ll have left me. I suppose he’s +left every thing to my cousin Susan, seeing that he had neither kith nor +kin except her and me. But somehow or other I can’t imagine his parting +with his money to any one, even after his death. I almost fancy that +he’d rather have tied it up, if he could, so that the interest upon it +would go on accumulating for ever and ever, thinking as he might +perhaps, being old and eccentric, that he’d have a kind of satisfaction, +even in his grave, from knowing that the money was going on getting more +and more, instead of being spent or squandered.” + +Francis Tredethlyn did not make this remark in any spirit of ill-nature; +he spoke like a man who states a plain fact. + +“I dare say he was a regular old curmudgeon,” Mr. Lowther answered, “but +he must leave his money to some one, and the fact of these lawyers +advertising for you is ample proof that he must have left some of it to +you.” + +Such a conversation as this occurred pretty frequently during the long +interval in which Francis Tredethlyn waited for the answer to his +letter. Sometimes, when Harcourt Lowther was in a very bad temper, he +would accuse his attendant of having grown proud and insolent and lazy, +since the advent of that _Times_ newspaper, which the ensign had +borrowed from Mr. Corbett; but every one of the accusations was as +groundless as many other of the officer’s complaints against people and +things in general. There was no change in Francis Tredethlyn: he did his +work cheerfully and well, obeyed orders in a frank, manly spirit, and +behaved himself altogether in a most exemplary manner. + +The time when a letter from England might be expected came round at +last; but Francis Tredethlyn evinced no anxiety for the arrival of the +solicitors’ epistle. A long season of drought had given way before a +sudden downfall of rain, and Harcourt Lowther, who had planned a couple +of days’ kangaroo hunting, and had made all necessary arrangements for +the performance of his duties by a good-natured and efficient +colour-sergeant, found himself a prisoner in his cottage at Port Arthur, +with nothing to do but wait for a change in the weather. + +It was very tiresome. The accomplished, light-hearted Harcourt Lowther, +who could take life so pleasantly in the drawing-rooms of Tyburnia or +Belgravia, to whom a summer afternoon amongst a group of fashionable +gossips in the smoking-room of his favourite club was only too short, +found this terrible Tasmanian day intolerably long. He had tried every +available way of getting rid of his time. He had sketched a little, and +read a little, and played the flute a little, and smoked a great deal, +and had relieved the oppression of his spirits by an incalculable number +of yawns, and a little occasional bad language. And now, having +exhausted all these resources, he stood with his head leaning listlessly +against the roughly finished sash of the window, watching the convict +labourers at work under the heavy rain. He derived some faint ray of +comfort from the signs of those two men. At any rate, there were some +people in the world worse off than himself,--unlucky wretches who were +obliged to work in wet weather, and wear a hideous dress, and eat coarse +unpalatable food, or food that appeared abominably coarse and +unpalatable in the eyes of Mr. Harcourt Lowther, who had been known upon +occasion to turn up his nose at the culinary masterpieces of Soyer and +Francatelli. + +“Why don’t they kill themselves?” muttered the ensign; “they could drive +rusty nails into their veins, and make an end of themselves somehow. +There are plenty of poisonous things in my garden that they might eat, +and make a finish of their lives that way; but they don’t. They go on +day after day drudging and toiling, and enduring their lives, somehow or +other. I suppose they hope to get away some day. How ever should I bear +my life if I didn’t hope to get away--if I didn’t hope it would come to +an end pretty soon?” + +Mr. Lowther, having exhausted the pleasure to be derived from a +contemplation of the convicts, took to pacing up and down the two rooms; +in the inner of which Francis Tredethlyn was busy cleaning his master’s +guns. + +Walking backwards and forwards, and backwards and forwards, and passing +the valet every time, Harcourt Lowther was fain to talk to him; rather +for the pleasure and relief of hearing his own voice, than from any +desire to be friendly towards his vassal. + +“No letter yet, Tredethlyn?” he said. + +“No, sir; but it may come any day.” + +“And you wait for it as quietly as if a legacy, more or less, was +nothing to you. I suppose if they send you a remittance, you’ll be +wanting to buy your discharge, and leave this place; and I shall have to +get another servant,--some awkward, ignorant boor, perhaps?” + +“I don’t know about that, sir. There’s plenty as good as me, I dare say, +among our fellows. Other folks may have been brought up respectably, and +taken to soldiering, like me. And as for buying my discharge, I don’t +say but I should be glad to do that, if those lawyer people gave me the +chance. I should be glad to get back to England and see my little cousin +Susy. I always call her little Susy, because I can’t help thinking of +her as she was when I remember her first, when she and I were boy and +girl sweethearts together. I’ve thought of her a deal since I got the +news of her father’s death, and I feel anxious about her, somehow or +other, when I fancy her left alone among strangers.” + +Harcourt Lowther, always walking backwards and forwards between the two +rooms, was in the sitting-room when his servant said this. He stopped to +look out of the window again, and there seemed to be a kind of dismal +fascination for him in the convicts, towards whom his eyes wandered in a +moody, absent-minded stare. + +“And where do you expect to find her--your cousin, I mean--when you do +go back to England?” he asked presently. + +“At the old farm, sir, to be sure. Where should I find her but there? +Poor little soul! she’s never known any other home but that, and isn’t +likely to leave it in a hurry of her own free will.” + +“Humph!” muttered the officer, “there’s no calculating upon the changes +that take place in this world. I never expect to find any thing as I +left it when I return to a place or people that I’ve been absent from +for any length of time. I expect to find plenty of changes when I get +back to the civilised world again. Do you suppose the people _there_ can +afford to waste their time thinking of wretched exiles _here_? Life with +them is utterly different from what it is with us. When I left England, +I was engaged to a beautiful girl with fifty thousand pounds or so for +her fortune,--a girl who would have married me, and given me a grand +start in life, if it hadn’t been for her father; but do you think I +expect to find her in the same mind when I go back? Do you think two +years’ absence won’t act as a sponge, and wipe _my_ image out of her +thoughts? What has a beautiful, frivolous creature like that to do with +constancy? Every man who looks at her falls over head and ears in love +with her. She is fed upon flattery and adulation. Is it probable, or +natural, or even possible that she will remember _me_?” + +It was not likely that Mr. Lowther would ask this question of his valet. +He asked it of himself, rather, in a peevish and complaining spirit, and +seemed to find a dismal comfort in harping on his wrongs and his +miseries. + +“I was a fool to think that Maude Hillary could be constant to me!” he +muttered, angrily. In his anger against a world that had treated him so +badly, he was angry with himself for having been so much a fool as to +expect better treatment. He walked to a little looking-glass hanging +over the mantelpiece, and looked at his handsome face. Was it the face +of a man who was to have no place in the world? Were his many graces of +person, his charm of manner, his versatility of mind, to serve for +nothing after all? + +“When I think of the fellows who get on in the world, I feel inclined to +make an end of all this by cutting my throat,” he said, as he frowned at +the image in the glass. + +He felt the region of the jugular vein softly with the ends of his +fingers as he spoke, and wondered whether death by the severance of that +important artery was a very painful finish for a man to make. He thought +of how he might look if Francis Tredethlyn, finding him late to rise one +morning, broke into his room and saw him lying in the sunny little +chamber deluged with blood and stone dead. He had been very religiously +brought up, amongst gentle, true-hearted women; but there was no more +pious compunction in his mind as he thought of suicide than there might +have been in the mind of an aboriginal inhabitant of the Solomon +Islands. He had a mother at home--a mother who believed in him and +idolized him, to the disparagement of all other creatures; but no image +of her grief and despair arose between him and the scheme of a desperate +death. His thoughts travelled in a narrow circle, of which self was the +unchanging centre. + +“I have heard of men making away with themselves on the very eve of some +event which would have made a complete change in their fortunes,” he +thought presently. “I never read the story of a suicide that did not +seem more or less the story of a fool. No, my death shall never make a +paragraph for a newspaper. I must be very hard pushed when I come to +that. This place gives me the blue-devils, and everything looks black to +me out here. I wish Abel Janz Tasman and Captain Cook had perished +before ever they sighted this dismal land. I wish all the lot of petty +Dutch traders and navigators had come to an untimely end before ever +they discovered any one of these miserable islands, which have been a +paradise for convicts and scoundrels, and a hell for gentlemen, during +the last half-century. How was I to know, when I bought a commission in +her Majesty’s service, that the first stage on the road to martial glory +was to be the post of head-gaoler at a settlement in the Antipodes? The +papers talk of a change in the transportation system, a change that will +rid Van Diemen’s Land of its present delightful inhabitants; but no +change is likely to come about in my time. I shall have to drag my chain +out to the last link, I dare say. It’s better to be born lucky than +rich, says the proverb; but how about the poor devils who are neither +rich nor lucky?” + +A rap on the little door, that opened out of the sitting-room on to a +patch of garden which lay between the house and the high road, startled +Mr. Lowther out of his long reverie. + +“It’s the fellow with the letters,” he cried; and before Francis +Tredethlyn could emerge from the inner room, his master had opened the +door, and had taken a little packet of letters, newspapers, and +magazines from the man who brought them. “One from my mother; one +from--yes--from Maude, at last; the _Times_, _Punch_, _Blackwood’s_, +_United Service_, and the lawyer’s letter!--‘Francis Tredethlyn, Esq.!’ +eh? The legacy must be something more than five hundred, my man, or +they’d hardly dub you Esquire.” + +He tossed the letter over to his servant as he spoke, and looked at the +Cornishman furtively, with something like envy expressed in his look. +Francis Tredethlyn received the lawyers’ epistle very coolly, and +retired into the adjoining room to read it, while his master sat at the +table in the parlour, tearing off the flimsy envelope of a letter with a +hasty nervous hand. + +“From Maude!” he muttered. “At last, my lady: at last, at last!” + +The letter was a very long one, written in a clear and bold yet +sufficiently feminine hand, on slippery pink paper scented with a +perfume that had survived an Australian voyage. The contents of the +letter must have been tolerably pleasing to Harcourt Lowther, for he +smiled as he read, and seemed to forget all about Francis Tredethlyn’s +legacy. + +“I miss you very much, though papa surrounds us with gaiety; indeed, I +think we have been gayer than ever lately; and he never seems so happy +as when our dear old lawn is crowded with visitors. But I miss you, +Harcourt, in spite of all the cruel insinuations in your last letter. +The summer evenings seem long and dreary when I think of you, so far +away, so unhappy, as your letters tell me you are, Harcourt, though you +are too unselfish to admit the truth in plain words. I scarcely open the +piano once in a month, now that I have no one to play concertante duets. +I scarcely care for a new opera; for the men who come into our box bore +me to death with their vapid talk, and I know that not one of them +understands what he talks about. I am not happy, Harcourt, though you +taunt me with my wealth and my position, and the difference between our +lives. I am not happy, for our future seems to grow darker and darker +every day. I have mentioned you to my father several times, and every +time he seems more angry than the last; so now I feel that your name is +tacitly tabooed; and any chance allusion to you from the lips of +strangers makes me tremble and turn cold. I have tried in vain to +comprehend the reason of my father’s aversion to any thought of a +marriage between you and me. I have been so much a spoiled child, that +to be thwarted or opposed on any subject seems strange to me, most of +all when that subject is so near my heart. I can scarcely think that my +dear father would allow any consideration of fortune to stand in the way +of happiness, and yet that is the only consideration that can influence +him, for I know that he always liked and admired you. You must awhile be +patient: what I can do I will. And you must trust me, dear Harcourt, and +not pain me again as you have pained me by those unkind doubts of my +constancy. You know that money has never been any consideration with me; +and you ought to know that I would willingly lose every penny of my +fortune rather than sacrifice my promise to you.” + +“O yes; that’s all very well!” muttered Mr. Lowther peevishly, after +having read this part of Miss Hillary’s epistle twice over; “but Lionel +Hillary’s daughter with fifty thousand pounds or so, and without a +penny, are two very different people. Not but what she’s always a +beautiful girl and a charming girl; but a man can have his pick of +charming and beautiful girls, if _that’s_ all he wants to set him up in +life. I love her, Heaven knows; and the sight of her writing sends a +thrill through my veins like the touch of her hand, or the fluttering of +her breath upon my cheek. But poverty makes a man practical, and I think +I never read a letter that had less of the practical in it than this +letter. It’s a woman’s epistle all over. We must be patient, and wait +till we’re worn out by waiting, and the engagement between us becomes a +chain that binds us both from better things, and the sound of each +other’s name becomes a nuisance to us from its associations of trouble +and responsibility. That’s what a long engagement generally comes to. If +I’d distinguished myself in India, led a desperate charge against +orders, or taken the gate of an Affghan fortress, or done something +reckless and mad-headed and lucky, and could have gone back with a +captaincy, and a dash of newspaper celebrity about my name, I might have +hoped that old Hillary, in a moment of maudlin after-dinner generosity, +would have given his consent to my marriage with Maude. But how am I to +present myself at Twickenham, and say, ‘I have been taking care of +convicts for the last two years,--not particularly well, for more +convicts have escaped into the bush in my time than in any other man’s +time, according to the reports,--and I have come back to England with +the same rank that I had when I left, and with less money than I took +away with me’? Can I go to Lionel Hillary and say that? Is that the sort +of argument which will induce a man to give me his daughter and her +fortune?” + +He went back to Miss Hillary’s letter. It was only a frivolous letter, +after all; and it contained more intelligence about a morning concert in +Hanover Square, a regatta at Ryde, and a preternaturally sagacious +Skye-terrier, than was likely to be gratifying to a discontented exile +at Port Arthur. But Mr. Lowther was fain to content himself as he might +with the pretty girlish gossip. It was something, after all his +grumbling, to receive the assurance that he was not entirely forgotten +by the only daughter and sole heiress of one of the richest merchants in +the city of London. + +He looked up presently from his letter, to see Francis Tredethlyn +standing in the doorway between the two rooms, pale to the lips, and +clutching at his throat as if he had some difficulty in breathing. + +“What’s the matter, man?” asked the ensign; “hasn’t the old chap left +you any money, after all?” + +“It isn’t that, sir,” gasped the soldier; “there’s money enough and to +spare. It’s my cousin Susy; that poor little innocent creature, that was +as pure as the apple-blossoms on the gnarled old trees in the orchard +when I left home. She’s done something, sir--something that turned her +father against her. She’s gone away, sir, and no one knows where she’s +gone, or what’s come of her, or whether she’s dead or alive. And her +father disinherited her, poor lost lamb; and--that’ll tell you all about +the fortune, sir, if you want to know about it.” Francis Tredethlyn +threw the lawyer’s letter upon the table before his master, and walked +away to the window--the same window at which the ensign had stood +looking out at the convicts half an hour before. + +Harcourt Lowther read the lawyer’s letter, at first with a listless, +indifferent air, and then as eagerly as if he had been reading his own +death-warrant. It was a long letter, worded in a very formal manner, but +it set forth the fact that the fortune left by Oliver Tredethlyn to his +nephew Francis amounted to something over thirty thousand a year. + +For some minutes after this fact had been made clear to him Harcourt +Lowther sat with the open letter before him, staring at the lines. Then +suddenly the blank stupor upon his face gave way to a look of despair. +The ensign flung his head and arms upon the table, and burst into tears. + +“I have been eating my own heart in this place for nearly two years,” he +sobbed, “and not one ray of light--no, by the heaven above me! not +one--has dawned upon my life; and a valet, a private soldier, the fellow +who scours my rooms and blacks my boots, has thirty thousand a year left +him!” + +There was something so terrible in this hysterical outburst of rage and +envy, something so utterly piteous in this unmanly revolt against +another man’s good fortune, that Francis Tredethlyn forgot his own +trouble before the aspect of his master’s degradation. + +“Don’t, sir,” he cried, “for God’s sake, don’t do that! All the riches +in the world wouldn’t pay a man for taking on like that. If you want +money, you’re welcome to borrow some of mine as soon as ever I get the +power to lend it. There’s more than I care to have, or could ever spend. +You’ll be welcome to what you want, Mr. Lowther. I don’t set much +account upon money, and I don’t think I ever shall; and the thoughts of +this fortune don’t give me half the pleasure I’ve felt in the gift of a +crown-piece long ago, when I was a little lad. I suppose it was because +I thought then there was nothing in all the world that five shillings +wouldn’t buy, and because I’m wiser now, and know there are some things +a million of money can’t purchase. The news of this money has brought +the thoughts of my father and my mother back to me, Mr. Lowther. I’d +give every sixpence of it, if it could bring back the past, and pay out +the bailiff’s man that was sitting by our kitchen-fire at home when my +mother lay ill up-stairs. But it can’t do that. My father and mother +both died poor, and all this money can’t buy back one of the sorrowful +days they spent in the old farm, when things went from bad to worse, and +debt and ruin came down upon us. I don’t seem to care for the money, Mr. +Lowther; I am dazed and bewildered, somehow, by the greatness of the +sum, but I don’t seem to care.” + +The ensign had calmed himself by this time. He got up and brushed the +tears from his eyes, real tears of rage, envy, mortification, and +despair. There was a faint blush upon his face, the one evidence of his +shame which he could not suppress in a moment, but all other evidences +of feeling had passed away. + +“You’re a good fellow, Tredethlyn,” he said, “an excellent +simple-hearted fellow; as simple-hearted as a baby,--for who but a baby +ever talked as you talk about this money? and I congratulate you upon +your good luck. I see these lawyer fellows send you a bill for a couple +of hundred; that’ll buy you off here pleasantly, and get you back to +England. My advice to you is to get back as fast as ever you can, and +enter into possession of your property. It seems a complicated kind of +estate from what I can make out--mining property, and agricultural +property, and shares in half the speculations of modern times,--but it’s +a great estate, and that’s all you want to know. Go back; and as soon as +ever I can get away from this accursed hole, I’ll look you up in London; +and I--I _will_ borrow a little of that money you generously offer, and +I’ll turn bear leader, and show you what life is in the upper circle, to +which thirty thousand a year is the universal ‘open sesame.’” + +The ensign slapped his hand upon his servant’s shoulder with a jovial +air, and spoke almost as gaily as if Oliver Tredethlyn’s fortune was to +be in some way or other a stroke of good luck for himself. + +“Thank you, sir,” Francis answered, thoughtfully, “you’re very good; but +I don’t care to force myself in among grand folks because I’m rich +enough to do as they do. I’ve got a task before me, and it may be a long +one.” + +“A task!” + +“Yes; I’ve got to look for my cousin.” + +“Your cousin, Susan Tredethlyn!--the girl whose portrait you showed me?” + +“Yes, sir. All this money would have been hers, most likely, if she +hadn’t done something to turn my uncle against her. I can’t forget that, +you see, sir; and the first use I make of the money will be to spend +some of it in looking after her.” + +“Susan Tredethlyn,” muttered Harcourt Lowther,--“Susan Tredethlyn. That +portrait you showed me was a very bad one, for I haven’t the least +notion of what your cousin is like.” + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + + + + CHAPTER V. + + COMING HOME. + + +When the jaded horses of the “Electric” coach from Falmouth stopped +before the Crown Inn at Landresdale, in the county of Cornwall, on the +13th of July, 1852, the landlord of the little hostelry was somewhat +startled by an event which was of very rare occurrence in those parts. A +passenger alighted from the back of the coach, and demanded his +portmanteau from the guard,--a passenger who, carrying his portmanteau +as easily as if it had been a parcel of flimsy milliner’s ware, walked +straight to the little private parlour opposite the bar, and ensconced +himself therein. + +“I shall want my dinner, and a bed, Joseph Penruffin,” he said to the +proprietor of the Crown. “You’d better see the coach off, and then you +can come and talk to me.” + +Mr. Penruffin retired aghast and staring. + +“I don’t know who he _is_, Sarah,” he remarked to a comely-looking +woman, who was sitting amongst a noble array of shelves and bottles in a +shady little bar that seemed a good deal too small for such a portly +presence. “His name’s as clean gone out of my mind as if I’d never set +eyes upon him; but I know him, and he knows me, Sarah, for he called me +by my name as glib as you please, and his face--Lord bless us and save +us!--his face is as familiar to me as yourn.” + +The passenger who had surprised the Crown Inn from its lazy tranquillity +stood at the little window looking out at the coach. The passenger was +Francis Tredethlyn, lately a foot-soldier in her Majesty’s service, now +a gentleman of landed estate and funded property; but very little +changed by the change in his fortune. As he had been independent and +fearless in the days when he ruled his life by the orders of other men, +so was he simple and unpretending now in the hour of his sudden +prosperity. What he had said to his master in the cottage at Port Arthur +in the first flush of his new fortunes appeared to be equally true of +him now. He did not seem to care about his wealth. He was in no way +elated by a change of fortune which would have sent some men into a +madhouse. + +“It seems to me, somehow, as if there was a kind of balance kept up in +this world between good and evil, like the debtor and creditor sides of +a ledger. I put down my uncle Oliver’s fortune on one side, and it looks +as if I was the luckiest fellow in Christendom. But there’s the loss of +poor little Susy must go down on the other side, and then the book looks +altogether different. The loss of her--yes, the loss--that’s the word! +If the earth had opened and swallowed her up, she couldn’t seem more +lost to me than she is.” + +The passengers of the “Electric” had recruited themselves by this time, +and a fresh pair of horses had replaced the tired animals who now stood +steaming in the great stable-yard. The coach rolled slowly off, along a +road that lay straight before the windows of the Crown--a road that +crept under the steep slope of a thickly wooded hill, defended by an old +crumbling wall, which, even in its decay, was grander and stronger than +any modern wall that ever girdled a modern gentleman’s estate. The +dark-red brick wall, and all the sombre woods above it, belonged to the +Marquis of Landresdale, upon whose mansion and estate the little town or +village of Landresdale was a kind of dependant, the inhabitants being +almost all of them supported indirectly or directly by the patronage of +the great man and his household. By these simple people the Cornish +nobleman was spoken of with awe and reverence as the “Marquis;” and that +the world held any other creature with a claim to that title was a fact +utterly ignored--it may be, even discredited--by the ratepayers of +Landresdale. Under the shadow of Landresdale House they were born and +lived; and in a church which was only a kind of mausoleum for the +departed nobles and dames of the house of Landresdale they worshipped +every sabbath-day, until in the minds of some hero-worshippers, the +figure of the Marquis grew into a giant shape that blotted out all the +world beyond Landresdale. + +“How familiar the old place seems to me, and yet how strange!” thought +Francis Tredethlyn, as he stood at the window. “There’s Jim Teascott the +cobbler over the way, sitting in the very same attitude he was in when I +stopped at the corner below to take my last look at Landresdale. But the +street seems as if it had dwindled and shrunk away into half the size it +used to be; and I feel as strange--as strange as if I’d been dead and +buried, and had come to life again after folks had forgotten all about +me; even the very seasons are all wrong, somehow, to my mind, as they +might seem to a man that had been lying dead ever so long.” + +Francis Tredethlyn rubbed his broad palm across his forehead, as if to +clear some kind of cloud away from his intellect. It was scarcely +strange that he should be confused and mystified by the seasons. He had +left autumnal clouds and winds in the Antipodes; and after a hundred +days or so at sea, he found a blazing July sky above his native land, +and he felt as if he had, somehow or other, been cheated out of a +winter. He looked at a little pocket-book, in which he had written some +names and addresses and other memoranda, and in which the initials “S. +T.” occurred very often. Those initials meant Susan Tredethlyn, and the +memoranda in the pocket-book chiefly related to inquiries which Francis +had made about his lost cousin. + +Those inquiries had resulted in very little information. The lawyers had +only been able to tell Francis the bare facts relating to his uncle’s +death; how one day, when they least expected to see the old man, he had +suddenly presented himself at their offices, very pale, very feeble, and +with an awful something, which even they recognized as the sign-manual +of the King of Terrors himself, imprinted on his haggard features: how +he had seated himself quietly in his accustomed place, and had dictated +to them, deliberately and unflinchingly, the terms of a will, by which +he bequeathed every shilling he possessed to his nephew, Francis +Tredethlyn; how, when they, as in duty bound, remonstrated with him +about the injustice that such a will would inflict upon his only +daughter, a hideous frown had distorted his face, and he had struck his +clenched fist upon the office-table, crying, with the most horrible +imprecation ever uttered in that place, that no penny of his getting +should ever go to save his daughter from rotting in a workhouse or +starving to death on the king’s highway;--he had said this, and in such +a manner as most effectually to put an end to all remonstrance on the +part of his solicitors. This was all that the lawyers could tell Francis +Tredethlyn about his cousin Susan; but they had gone on to tell him how +his uncle had insisted on leaving the office alone and on foot; how he +had walked the best part of the way from Gray’s Inn to an old-fashioned +commercial inn in the Borough, and how he had broken down at last, only +a hundred yards from his destination, and had fainted away on the +threshold of a chemist’s shop, whence he had been carried to his +death-bed. This had happened on the 30th of June in the preceding year; +and this was all that the lawyers had to tell Francis Tredethlyn, over +and above such intelligence as related only to the extent and nature of +the property bequeathed to him by his late uncle. + +But in Landresdale the name of Oliver Tredethlyn was almost as well +known as that of the Marquis himself; and in Landresdale Francis hoped +to learn the true story of his cousin’s fate. He stood now looking out +of the window into the rustic highway, as quiet in the summer evening +calm as if it had been a street in one of the buried cities of Italy, as +peaceful in its drowsy aspect as if no palpitating human heart had ever +carried its daily burden of care and sorrow along the narrow footways, +beneath the shadow of the peaked roofs and quaint abutting upper +stories. He stood looking out, and remembering himself a boy in that old +hill-side street; he stood there now, wondering alike at the past and +the present, which by contrast seemed both equally strange and +unnatural; he stood there in all the flush and vigour of his youth, a +tall, broad-shouldered, simple-hearted soldier, with a fortune far +exceeding the narrow limits of his arithmetical powers, as ignorant of +all the real world that lay before him as a little country lad who rides +to town upon the top of a load of hay and expects to find the streets +paved with gold, and the Queen dressed in her crown and robes, and +sitting on her throne with the ball and sceptre in her hands for ever +and ever. + +The landlord of the Crown came bustling in presently with a wooden tray +of knives and forks, and glasses and cruets, that would have amply +served for a dinner-party of half-a-dozen. He laid the cloth with great +ceremony, although with a certain air of briskness inseparable from +innkeeping, even in the laziest and dullest village in all England; and +he kept a furtive watch upon his guest throughout all his operations, +from the preparatory polishing down of the mahogany table, to the final +flourish with which he removed a very large cover from a very small +rumpsteak. + +“I think I ought to know you, sir,” he said, courteously, as Francis +Tredethlyn seated himself at the table. + +“I think you ought, Joseph Penruffin; I think you ought to remember +Francis Tredethlyn, son of your old friend John Tredethlyn, of Pen +Gorbold, who was a little bit too friendly in this house, perhaps, for +his own prosperity.” + +“Francis Tredethlyn!” cried the landlord, clapping his hand upon his +knee, “Francis Tredethlyn! To be sure it is! To think that I should +forget a face that was once as familiar to me as my own son’s! Francis +Tredethlyn! Why, I remember you a lad playing cricket on the green +yonder with my own boys. And you’ve come into a very fine fortune, sir, +I understand; and I hope you will excuse the liberty, if I make so bold +as to wish you every happiness with it, Francis Tredethlyn. Lord bless +us and save us! why, I can remember you a little bit of a toddling child +coming into Landresdale Church with your mother on a summer Sunday +morning, as if it was yesterday! I ask pardon for being so bold and +free-like, but the sight of your face takes me back to old times, and +I’m apt to forget myself.” + +Mr. Penruffin’s mind was curiously divided between the memories of the +past and his desire to be duly reverential to Francis Tredethlyn’s new +fortunes. The young man smiled as he recognized the influence of his +newly acquired wealth at war with the associations of his boyhood. He +had seen pretty much the same thing in the office of Messrs. Krusdale +and Scardon. He was beginning already to perceive that an income of +thirty thousand a year made a kind of barrier between himself and poorer +men, and that they regarded him with the same feeling of mingled +reverence and familiarity with which they would have looked at a very +ordinary statue seen across a wonderful screen of virgin gold. + +“And the sight of _your_ face takes _me_ back to old times, Mr. +Penruffin,” he said, with rather a mournful accent, “and I’d freely give +half this great fortune of mine if I could bring back one of those +summer Sunday mornings in the old church, and see myself a little fellow +again, trudging by my mother’s side, with a green-baize bag of +prayer-books on my arm. I’d give five thousand pounds for a silk-dress I +saw in a Plymouth draper’s fifteen years ago, when I was too poor to do +any thing but wish for it, if my mother were alive to wear it. I used to +think, when I was a lad, of what I’d buy for my mother out of the first +five-pound note I ever earned; and now I’ve got thirty thousand a year, +and there’s nothing upon all this earth that I can buy for her, except a +gravestone to mark the spot where she lies.” + +“Thirty thousand a year!” muttered the landlord, in an undertone, which +had just a tinge of disappointment in it. The Landresdale people had +given their imaginations free play since the death of Oliver Tredethlyn, +and the old man’s fortune had swelled into almost fabulous proportions +with the lapse of time; so thirty thousand didn’t seem so very much, +after all. There had been an idea in Landresdale that Francis Tredethlyn +would most likely buy up the Marquis’s estate off-hand, and if +practicable make a handsome offer for the purchase of the title. + +“I am sure, sir, your feelings do you credit,” said Mr. Penruffin, after +that brief sense of disappointment; “I may say very great credit,” he +added, with emphasis,--as if any display of feeling from the possessor +of thirty thousand a year were specially meritorious. “I suppose you +have come down this way to survey your property, sir; to look about you +a little, eh?” inquired the landlord of the Crown, when Francis had +finished his frugal dinner. + +“Not I,” the young man answered; “I scarcely know what my property is +yet, though the lawyers told me a long rigmarole about it. No, I’ve come +on a very different errand,” he added gravely. “You remember my cousin, +Susan Tredethlyn, I dare say? I have come to look for her.” + +Joseph Penruffin shook his head solemnly, and breathed a long sigh that +was almost a groan. + +“If that’s your errand here, sir, I’m afraid it isn’t likely to be a +very fortunate one. Folks in Landresdale never expect to see Susan +Tredethlyn again; she went away from the farm four years ago; no one +knows exactly where she went; no one knows why she went. There’s your +uncle’s old servants, Mr. Tredethlyn, of course they _might_ have said +something, if they’d liked to it. But you may as well go and question +the tombstones in Landresdale churchyard as question _them_. All I know, +or all anybody knows in this place is, that your cousin Susan went away +and never came back again; and it stands to reason that she must have +done something very bad indeed, and made her father very desperate +against her, before the old man would have gone and left all his money +away from her--meaning no disrespect to you, sir, but only looking at it +in the light of human nature in general,” added the landlord, +apologetically. + +“I’ll never believe that Susan Tredethlyn did any thing wicked or +unwomanly till her own lips tell me so,” cried Francis, bringing his +hand heavily down on the table. “She may have made my uncle desperate +against her, _that’s_ likely enough, for he was always hard with her; +and when I think of his having hoarded all this money, and remember the +life my cousin Susan used to lead, I can scarcely bring myself to +believe that she was his own flesh and blood. I’ll never believe that +she did any thing wrong. I’ll never believe that she could grow to be +any thing different from what she was when I left home,--an innocent, +modest little creature, who was almost frightened of her own pretty +looks when she caught a sight of herself in a glass. But I’m going up to +the old house; and if Martha Dryscoll or her husband know any thing of +my lost cousin, I’ll get the knowledge from them, though I have to wring +it out of their wizened old throats.” + +The young man rose as he said this, and took his hat and stick from a +chair near the window. Joseph Penruffin watched him with something like +alarm upon his countenance. + +“You’ll sleep here to-night, sir?” he asked. + +“Yes; I’m going straight up to the Grange, and I don’t know how long I +may be gone; but I’ll come back here to sleep. I should scarcely fancy +lying down in one of those dreary old rooms; I should expect to see the +wandering spirit of my lost cousin come and look in at me from the +darkness outside my window. No; however late I may be, I’ll come back +here to sleep.” + +“And perhaps you’d like some little trifle for supper, sir, having made +such an uncommon poor dinner,” suggested the landlord,--“a chicken and a +little bit of grass, or a tender young duck and a dish of peas?” + +But Francis Tredethlyn was walking up the little village street out of +earshot of these savoury suggestions before the landlord had finished +his sentence. + +“I don’t call that manners,” muttered Mr. Penruffin; “but I shall cook +the chicken for ten o’clock, and chance it; he can afford to pay for it, +whether he eats it or not. And I think, taking into consideration old +acquaintance and thirty thousand a year, it would only have been +friendly in Francis Tredethlyn if he’d ordered a bottle of wine with his +dinner.” + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + + + + CHAPTER VI. + + THE END OF THE WORLD. + + +The sun was low when Francis Tredethlyn left the Crown Inn, and walked +slowly up the village street. The sun was low, and already a crimson +glory flickered here and there upon the quaint old casements. The young +man walked slowly, looking about him with a half-doubtful, +half-bewildered gaze, like a man who sees his native village in a dream. +And indeed no village in the vision of a sleeper could be more tranquil +in its rustic repose than this Cornish street, steep and stony, mounting +to the summit of a hill, upon whose top the great gates of Landresdale +loomed grim and stately, like the entrance to an ogre’s castle in +fairyland. You climbed the steep little street; and you came to the big +gates of Landresdale; and that was all. The village ended here; and +there was nothing for you to do but to go back again. It was like coming +to the end of the world, and finding a great Elizabethan door of +ponderous oak and iron barred against any chaotic realm that might lie +beyond our every-day earth. There may have been occasions--indeed, the +inhabitants of Landresdale would have testified to many such--on which +those ponderous doors swung open on their mighty hinges: but the +ignorant traveller, looking at them shut, found it difficult to realize +the possibility of their ever being opened. They looked like the doors +of a mausoleum: which may open once in half a century to admit the +coffined dead, but can never be unclosed for any meaner purpose. Grim +towers flanked the stony arch on either side, and two old rusty cannon +displayed their iron noses within the shadow of the towers, ready to +fire a volley down the hilly street whenever the simple folks of +Landresdale should evince any revolutionary tendencies. + +To the right of the great gates there was a handsome wing of solid +masonry, whose Tudor windows opened upon a square courtyard, where there +were more cannon, and upon a prim, old-fashioned garden, shut in by a +high wall, and only visible to the wanderer through the iron rails and +arabesques of a lofty gate, amidst whose scrollwork the arms of the +Landresdales and Treverbyns, the Courtenays and Polwheles, were +interlaced and entangled. + +The garden wall bounded the estate of Rashleigh Vyvyan Trevannence, +Marquis of Landresdale; and beneath the shelter of that old ivy-covered +red brick wall lay the churchyard, quiet and shadowy, dark with the +dense foliage of great yew-trees, thick with long tangled grass, that +grew high amongst the slanting headstones. Francis Tredethlyn stopped by +the low wooden gate, and leaning against the moss-grown pillar that +supported it, looked up at the square towers which seemed like stony +sentinels for ever keeping guard over the entrance to Landresdale. The +light was red upon the corner window that faced the western sky, but all +the other casements stared blankly and darkly out upon the graves in the +churchyard, and the empty village street, in which one woman, toiling +slowly upwards with a pitcher of water that slopped and trickled at +intervals upon the pavement, was the only living presence. + +“The great gates look just the same as they used to look,” thought +Francis Tredethlyn. “When I was a boy, and read fairy-tales, I always +fancied that the enchanted castle the wandering prince came to in the +middle of a wood, or on the summit of a great mountain, was like +Landresdale, a castle standing all alone in the middle of the way, with +no road to the right nor to the left, so that the prince _must_ go in +and ask shelter, though he knew that harm would come of it, or else go +back and lose all the trouble of his journey. How I used to long to pull +that bell when I was a lad!” thought Francis, looking at the iron ring +which swung from a massive chain on one side of the archway. + +“But I’ve no need to dawdle here,” he thought, as he pushed the gate +open and went into the churchyard. “It seems as if the nearer I get to +the place where I am certain to hear the truth about Susan, the more I +dread hearing it.” + +The ignorant traveller who might turn away from the great gates of +Landresdale to descend the hill under the impression that the county of +Cornwall came to an abrupt termination upon the threshold of the +Marquis’s domain, would have been mistaken. There were other and higher +lands, broad stretches of hill and moorland, lying beyond the +churchyard, to the right of the quaint old garden and the Gothic towers +and casements: and it was thitherward that Francis Tredethlyn directed +his steps. He crossed the churchyard, only pausing briefly before one +tombstone, upon which the names of Sarah and John Tredethlyn were cut, +low down on the stone, at the bottom of a long list of Tredethlyns, who +lay buried in that churchyard. The young man let himself out of the +solemn precinct by a little rusty iron gate that opened on a broad +expanse of common land sloping upward towards the western sky, and only +broken here and there by a quarry or a patch of water. + +“It looks bleak and barren enough,” thought Francis, with a shudder; +“but it’s hereabouts that my uncle Oliver picked up a good bit of his +money. The tin mines lie out yonder; and the stone quarry in the hollow +there brought him in plenty, if folks tell the truth.” + +Francis Tredethlyn might have echoed the boast of Helen Macgregor had he +chosen, and with stronger justification than that lady, for the earth +upon which he trod was not only his native land but his own peculiar +property, by virtue of certain yellow-looking parchments under the +sign-manual of an Earl and Baron of Landresdale who flourished in the +reign of James I. and by payment of an eccentric annual tribute in the +shape of a young doe and a hundredweight of virgin tin. It was all his +own, this bleak waste land which Francis Tredethlyn, late private +soldier in her Majesty’s service, late valet to a capricious master, now +trod under his feet. Nor was it the less to be considered for its +barrenness of aspect, for rich metals lay deep below the heathery +surface, in mines that were amongst the oldest and most valuable in +Cornwall. + +But Francis Tredethlyn was in no wise elated or disturbed by the +importance of his possession. He had never felt any ardent desire for +wealth, and as yet he had not begun to realize its manifold advantages. +He saw the effect of his fortune upon other men, and smiled at their +weakness; but what had been true of him in the first hour of his altered +position was true of him now,--he had no power either to realize or +rejoice in the extent of his riches. + +He walked slowly across the barren moorland, always upward, always +mounting towards a long ridge of western hill, behind which two streaks +of yellow light stretched low against the darkening sky,--a bleak, +bare-looking hill, that seemed the very end of the world. It was upon +this hillside that Tredethlyn Grange had been built four centuries ago, +in the days when men built their houses with a view to endurance; and it +stood there still, a long gray tenement of moss-grown stone, with narrow +casement windows, looking darkly out upon the twilight moor. The larger +portion of the old house had been uninhabited during the tenantship of +the Tredethlyns, who, in a spirit of economy, had located themselves in +the interior rooms lying at one end of the rambling mansion. It was in +one of these rooms that a light now twinkled faintly; and it was towards +this end of the house that Francis Tredethlyn directed his steps. There +had been a moat once on two sides of the house, but cabbages now grew +upon the sloping earth. There had been a garden once before the Grange, +and an old stone sun-dial still marked the spot; but of all the trim +flower-beds and angular paths there remained no vestige now. A field of +trefoil, bounded by a low stone wall, lay beyond two broken pillars that +had once supported a pair of handsome gates; and the sheep browsed close +beneath the dim latticed windows. + +“It seems like the end of the world to me to-night,” thought Mr. +Tredethlyn; “and yet once it was comfortable and home-like enough, when +I sat with Susy of a night by the fire in the kitchen, while she darned +the old man’s gray worsted stockings. And to think that he had such +oceans of money all that time, and yet seemed almost to grudge his only +child every gown she wore, and every bit of bread she put into her +mouth.” The young man was close to the familiar threshold by this time. +He knocked at a low, narrow door in the neighbourhood of the one dimly +lighted window, and then drew back a few paces, looking up at the +old-fashioned casements. + +“This is the window of Susy’s room,” he thought. “How black and dark it +looks to-night! I remember coming up here the night before I ran away to +Falmouth to enlist. I remember standing by the low wall yonder, in the +cold autumn night, looking up at that very window. There was a light +burning then, and I thought of how I should see it burning just the same +when I came back, and how I’d throw a handful of earth up at the old +window, and Susy would look out, startled and wondering, to find her +faithful sweetheart come back to her from the end of the world. And now +it’s this place that seems like the end of the world somehow, and I’m +every bit as far from Susy now as ever I was out yonder.” + +The door was opened only a very little way, and a woman’s face, so hard +and angular that it seemed almost to cut into the dusky atmosphere, +peered out at the traveller. + +“What do you please to want, sir?” she asked, suspiciously. + +“I want to ask you a few questions, Martha Dryscoll. I’ve come from the +Antipodes to ask them.” + +“Mr. Tredethlyn!” cried the woman, opening the door to its widest +extent; “Mr. Francis Tredethlyn come home to his own like a ghost in the +night! I make so bold as to bid you welcome, sir. Your uncle’s empty +chair stands ready for you. The house seems strange and lonesome without +him.” + +It was not everybody who would have ascribed to Mr. Oliver Tredethlyn +the power to enliven any house with the smallest ray of cheerfulness, or +brighten any fireside with so much as the faintest glimmer of light. But +Martha Dryscoll spoke in all good faith. She had believed in her master, +and had worked for him, and pinched for him, and half-starved herself +and other people for his sake, throughout five-and-thirty years of the +dreariest and hardest life that woman ever endured. He had picked her +up, starved and almost dying, upon a high road near one of his outlying +farms, and had taken her from field-labour and all its attendant pains, +to be his housekeeper and--slave; and she had repaid this favour a +thousandfold by a devotion that knew no weariness, and a rigid economy +that extended itself to the saving of a grain of salt in the old +spindle-legged leaden saltcellars. + +Oliver Tredethlyn had not been actuated by any Quixotic motive in this +eccentric choice of a servant. He took his housekeeper from the wayside +because he saw in her a stuff he had vainly sought in the pampered +menials who had hitherto presented themselves to his notice. He had been +attracted to Martha in the first instance by her gaunt face and gaunter +figure, which would have been sufficiently alarming in one of King +Frederick William’s chosen grenadiers. He had been attracted still more +by her curt answers to his curt questions, in which she told him that +she had walked thirty miles that day before lying down, as she believed, +to die; that she had walked twenty miles the day before, and +five-and-twenty the day before that; that she had not tasted food for +the last eight-and-forty hours; and that she had worked in the fields +and lived upon an average of two-pence a day ever since she could +remember. + +It was upon this that a bargain was struck between Oliver Tredethlyn, of +Tredethlyn Grange, of the one part, and Martha Blank, Martha Anybody, of +the other part, for the poor creature had no knowledge of any special +surname to which she might lay claim. She had been called Carroty Jane +in one place because her hair was red and her name was not Jane. She had +been called Gawky Bet, and Lanky Poll, at other places, on account of +her abnormal height; but the name she had received in the Union, where +her earlier years had been passed, was Martha, and it was this name +which she herself recognised as her legitimate appellation. She went +home with Oliver Tredethlyn in one of his empty waggons, and ate her +first spare meal in the Grange kitchen before nightfall; and from that +hour until the old man’s death she served him well and faithfully. She +lived with him all the days of his bachelorhood, and resignedly united +herself to his bailiff when he commanded her so to do. This faithful +creature welcomed Mr. Tredethlyn’s wife when he took it into his head to +bring home a small tenant-farmer’s pretty daughter, who had been forced +into a marriage with a man whom she detested; and, faithful and untiring +to the last, this rough-handed, brawny-armed servant watched by the +young wife’s sick bed during those dull years in which she slowly +withered and faded, from a fresh, blooming girl, into a prematurely old +woman, and so sank by lingering stages into an early grave, leaving +behind her one only child, whose infancy and girlhood were brightened by +no softer light than such as might be shed from the grim, grenadier-like +affection of Martha Dryscoll. + +Jonathan Dryscoll, the farm-bailiff whom Oliver Tredethlyn had desired +his housekeeper to marry, was ten years younger than his wife, and was +so poor and weak a creature morally and physically in her hands, that he +seemed at least half a century her junior. If she told him to do +anything, he did it. If she told him to think anything, he thought it; +or would have done so, if the mental exercise had not been generally +beyond the scope of his faculties. He was as honest and faithful as +Martha herself; but if Martha had told him to go and fire all the ricks +on Oliver Tredethlyn’s property, he would have done it with the blind +trustfulness of a princess in a child’s story-book, who obeys the +eccentric behests of a fairy godmother. That Martha Dryscoll could do +anything wrong, or think anything wrong, was an hypothesis which +Jonathan her husband had never contemplated. Perhaps the pleasantest +thing about this couple was that there was no disagreeable evidence of +Martha’s authority. Indeed, that worthy woman was most punctilious in +respect to her liege lord and husband, whom she always spoke of as “the +master.” Jonathan obeyed and trembled, but the sceptre which his wife +wielded was an invisible one, and the chains that bound her slave were +as impalpable as if they had been fashioned of cobwebs. + +Martha Dryscoll was not renowned for her capacity of expressing any +species of emotion; but some faint ray of pleasure kindled in her grim +face as she conducted Francis Tredethlyn through the kitchen to an +apartment that had served as a kind of state chamber for three +generations of his race. She set the candle on the polished mahogany +table, and, folding her arms, contemplated the new master of the Grange +at her leisure. In that dim light, in her quaint, scanty dress, with a +brown background of oaken wainscot behind her, she looked like a quaint +figure in one of Jan Steen’s pictures, a hard-faced, angular housewife, +honest, laborious, and economical, with her ear perpetually open to the +leaking of beer-barrels, or the boiling-over of soup-kettles; her eye +ever on the alert to perceive waste or destruction. + +“I wish you welcome, Mr. Tredethlyn,” she said; and then, with something +like sadness in her tone, “If the money _was_ to go away from her, +better that it should go to you than to strangers. I don’t think that +you’d turn your back upon her, if she was to need your help; would you +now, Mr. Francis?” + +“Turn my back upon her!” cried the young man,--“turn my back upon my +cousin Susy! Do you think I want the money that ought to have been hers? +With God’s blessing, I will go to the end of the world to find my poor +little girl. But tell me--tell me all about it, Martha. I know you are a +good creature. I know you were fond of Susan, though you seemed hard and +stern, like the old man. Tell me all you know about my lost cousin, and +don’t fear but I’ll make good use of my knowledge.” + +“It isn’t much I have to tell, sir,” answered the housekeeper, very +gravely. “You remember old Mr. Restwick, of Pen Gorbold. Folks say that +he’s almost as rich as our master was. However it is, he and master were +always fast friends; and when Mrs. Restwick had been dead a little over +a twelvemonth, he and master seemed to get friendlier than ever, and was +always laying their heads together about something, old Restwick hanging +about this place, and sitting in our kitchen, and in this very room--for +master made quite a fuss with the old man, and would sit in the parlour +on his account--all the summer time. Miss Susan usen’t to like the old +man, but she daredn’t say as much, seeing as he was her father’s friend. +Heaven, as looks down upon me, knows, Mr. Francis, than the real reason +of old Restwick pottering about our place night after night never came +into my head, no more than if it had been so much Greek or Latin. But +one night--one quiet summer evening, after such a day as to-day--the +truth came out all at once; and it came upon Susan Tredethlyn as it came +upon me--like a thunderbolt. Can you guess what it was, Mr. Francis?” + +“No!” exclaimed the young man, staring at Martha Dryscoll with a +bewildered expression on his face. + +“Nor any one else, Mr. Francis, that wasn’t so wrapped up in the love of +his money that the very heart inside of him had turned to stuff as hard +as big golden guineas, or harder; for there’s some kind of furnace as +will melt _them_, isn’t there, Mr. Francis? On the night I am telling +you of, my master told Susan the meaning of old Restwick’s visits. She +was to marry him--poor, pretty young thing. He’d promise to make such +and such--settlements--I think master called ’em, and she’d be mistress +of Pen Gorbold farm, and one of the richest women in this part of the +country. The poor dear only gave one shriek, Mr. Francis, and fell down +upon the floor at her father’s feet as white and as quiet as a corpse.” + +“The hard-hearted villain!” cried Francis, pacing up and down the room; +“the infernal villain!” + +“She didn’t lie there long; she wasn’t let to do that. Mr. Tredethlyn +lifted her up by the arm, and set her on her feet, fierce and +savage-like; and when she opened her eyes, and looked about her, all +stupefied and bewildered, he began to talk to her. It was cruel talk to +hear from a father to his child; it was a cruel sight to see her +trembling and shivering, and only held from falling by his hard hand +clenched upon her arm. I tried to interfere between them, Mr. Francis; +but my master let his daughter drop into a chair, and pushed me out of +the room. Me and Jonathan was sleeping in the room over the stables +then, and Mr. Tredethlyn took me by the shoulders, and put me out of the +door that opens from the kitchen into the stone-yard at back. I heard +the door bolted against me, and I knew I could be no help or comfort to +that poor child all night. The door’s thick, but I could just hear Susan +Tredethlyn’s sobs now and then, like as if they’d been blown towards me +on the winds, and her father’s voice speaking loud and stern; I listened +till all seemed quiet, and I was in hopes his heart was softened towards +her. But when I got up at four o’clock next morning--for it was +harvest-time, and we were very busy--Susan Tredethlyn’s room was empty, +and the front door was unlocked and unbolted. She’d run away, Mr. +Francis; she’d let herself out some time in the night, and run away. +There was a little scrap of a shawl she used to wear hanging to the +latch of the door. That was bad news for me to tell my master, Mr. +Francis; but I had to tell it. He turned white, and glared at me for a +minute just like a wild beast, and there was a choking, gurgling kind of +noise in his throat. But he was as quiet after that one minute as if he +had been made of iron. ‘So much the better, Mrs. Dryscoll,’ he said, ‘an +undutiful daughter isn’t worth the meat she eats.’” + +“But he went after her,” said Francis; “surely he made some attempt to +bring her back? He didn’t let a poor ignorant girl go out into the world +without a friend--without a sixpence?” + +“She had a little money, Mr. Francis. Her father had given her a +sovereign on her birthday every year for the last ten years, making her +promise to save the money. She had saved the money, for she had no +chance to spend it, poor child; and she took that money with her, for +when I looked about her room I missed the little box she used to keep it +in. As to looking for her, Mr. Tredethlyn never stirred hand or foot to +do it, though I went on my bended knees to him, begging and praying of +him to bring her back. As to me, Mr. Francis, I’m but a poor ignorant +countrywoman, that never learned to read and write till I was getting on +for thirty; but I got my husband to go to Falmouth with an advertisement +for the county paper, saying as ‘S. T. was to remember she had a true +friend in M. D., and was to be sure and write to her whenever she wanted +help.’ I daredn’t say more, sir; and I think when master saw that +advertisement he knew what it meant, for he glared at me across the +paper, just as he glared at me when I told him his daughter was gone.” + +“And he never relented--he never softened towards that poor unhappy +girl?” + +“For three years, sir, he never mentioned her name. Night after night +he’d sit and write, and make out his accounts, and calculate his +profits, and such-like, and he’d talk to me fast enough about the +business of the farm; but he never spoke his daughter’s name. One day he +got a letter directed in her hand. I took it from the postman at +Landresdale myself one afternoon when I was down there marketing, and I +wrote down the post-mark that was on it, and that was all I ever knew of +that letter. When my master saw the hand, he came over all of a tremble +like, and there was something awful in the sight of that stern old man +trembling and shivering like as if he had been stricken by the palsy; +but he got over it in a minute, and read the letter, me watching him all +the time. If his face had been stone, it couldn’t have told less. He +crumpled up the letter and put it in his pocket, and for three months he +never spoke of that nor of his daughter. Yet I knew somehow that he +thought of her; for a kind of change came over him, and he seemed always +brooding, brooding, brooding; and he’d start up all of a sudden when we +was all sitting of a night quiet in this kitchen--he’d start up as if he +was going right away, and then heave a long sigh, and sit down again. +But he never said anything about what was in his thoughts, till one +morning he came to me, and said very quietly, ‘Pack me some clothes in a +carpet-bag, Mrs. Dryscoll. I’m going to London to look for my daughter.’ +My husband and him went on foot down to Landresdale to catch the +Falmouth coach; but our master never came back. The next news as we +heard of him, Mr. Francis, came to us a month after he’d left. It was a +letter from the lawyers, to say that Mr. Oliver Tredethlyn was dead.” + +“And is that all?” + +“Yes, Mr. Francis; I can tell you no more. My master was a good master +to me, and I served him faithfully, and worked hard to save his money. +But things have all seemed to come before me in a new light since that +night when I saw Susan Tredethlyn fall white and cold at her father’s +feet, and him without pity for her. It seems as if I’d been stone-blind +up to that time, Mr. Francis; and my eyes was opened all of a sudden; +and I saw that we’d been all wicked heathens, making an idol out of +money that had never brought happiness or comfort to any living +creature; least of all to ourselves. I saw it all at once that night, +Mr. Francis, and I knew that our lives had been wrong somehow.” + +Martha Dryscoll spoke very earnestly. She was a good woman, after her +own manner; eager to do her duty to the uttermost, grateful for small +favours, faithful and affectionate. A noble heart beat in that +grenadier-like form, a gentle spirit looked out of those hard gray eyes. +She told the story of her young mistress’s flight with a sorrowful +solemnity, undisturbed by tears. Perhaps her hard childhood, her bitter +youth, her joyless middle life had dried up the source of that tender +womanly emotion; for Martha Dryscoll had never been seen by living +witnesses to shed a tear. She unlocked a grim-looking workbox, and took +from it a little pocket-book, out of which she tore a leaf. + +“That’s the name that was on the post-mark, Mr. Francis,” she said, +handing the paper to Mr. Tredethlyn. + +The young man read the word Coltonslough. + +“Coltonslough,” he repeated, “I never heard of a place of that name. But +I’ll find it, if it’s the most obscure spot upon the earth. God bless +you, Martha Dryscoll, for I believe you’re a good woman.” + +He held out his hand, and grasped the housekeeper’s bony fingers as he +spoke. + +“We’ve been awaiting--me and the master--for orders from you as to what +we was to do, sir. We’re ready to serve you faithful, if you want our +service; but we’re ready to leave the old place, if we’re any burden +upon you. You’ll be coming to settle here, maybe?” + +“No,” answered Francis Tredethlyn, with something of a shudder. “If I’d +found Susan here, as I once thought to find her, I should have been glad +enough to settle somewhere in these parts. As it is, there’s something +in the place that gives me the heartache, and I doubt if I shall ever +come near it again. Whatever wages you and your husband had in my +uncle’s time shall be doubled from to-night, Mrs. Dryscoll; and if my +cousin Susan is still alive, and should ever find her way back to this +place, I should like her to see a light burning in the old window, and +to find a faithful friend ready to bid her welcome home.” + +Francis Tredethlyn did not linger very long in the house where a great +part of his boyhood had been spent. Martha’s husband came in presently, +smelling very strongly of cowhouse and stable, and the two would fain +have given Mr. Tredethlyn a detailed account of their stewardship: but +the young man had no heart to listen to them. What did it matter to him +that he was the poorer by the death of an Alderney cow on the +pasture-farm down in the valley, or the richer by a great sheep-shearing +season on the hill? He came home to find no creature of his kith or kin. +He stood as much alone in the world as Adam before Eve was created to +bear him company; and he felt very desolate in spite of his thirty +thousand a year. + +He walked back to Landresdale across the bleak moorland under the still +summer night. Away in the distance he saw the dark expanse of purple +ocean melting imperceptibly into purple sky: and vague and dim as that +shadowy distance seemed the unknown future that lay before him. He slept +at the Crown, and left Landresdale early the next morning by the +Falmouth coach, journeying Londonward: but he had by no means abandoned +his search for Susan Tredethlyn. + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + + + + CHAPTER VII. + + MAUDE HILLARY’S ADORERS. + + +From the bleak moorland on the Cornish hills, where no tree can +flourish, and where the sweeping breath of the salt sea-breeze nips the +tender verdure, and makes the quiet sheep wink again as they look +oceanward; from the hilly district beyond Landresdale, which seems like +the end of the world, and is at any rate the finishing-point of this +British Isle, to the valley of the Thames, the sheltered and lovely +hollow nestling under the wooded heights about the Star-and-Garter, is +about as great a change of scene as all England can afford. It is like +the pushing away of some battered front scene which has done duty for +the blasted heath near Forres, whereon Macbeth met the witches, since +the days when Garrick himself represented the ambitious Thane, to reveal +a glimpse of fairyland fresh from the pencil of Mr. Beverley, with +sunlit cascades glimmering here and there amongst the verdant valleys, +and forest-trees reflected in the calm bosom of a lake. + +Mr. Hillary’s place lay in a sheltered bend of the river, nearer to +Isleworth than to Twickenham--a spot where the trees grew thicker and +the shadows fell darker on the quiet water, and the plash of oars was +less often heard, than higher up the river, Mr. Hillary’s house and Mr. +Hillary’s garden seemed to have nestled into the shadiest and most +verdant nook along the river-bank. It was called the Cedars, and it was +a very old place, as any place so called should be. It was called the +Cedars by virtue of the great trees whose spreading branches made +patches of dense shadow on the lawn; and not by the caprice of a cockney +builder, who christens his shelterless houses indifferently after the +noblest trees of the forest. The house was an old red-brick mansion, +long and low and irregular; and there is no kind of window invented for +the admission of the light of heaven, and there is no species of blind +devised by ingenious artisan for the exclusion of that light when it +becomes obnoxious, which did not adorn and diversify the glowing crimson +of the façade. Oriel windows and Tudor windows; long French windows of +violet-stained glass, tiny diamond-paned casements, and noble +jutting-out bays; windows with balconies, and windows with verandahs; +striped linen blinds of crimson and white, and Venetian shutters of +dazzling green; windows leading into conservatories, and windows opening +into aviaries,--all combined to bewilder the eye of the stranger who +stood upon the lawn by the river looking up at Mr. Hillary’s mansion. + +Perhaps there never had been any where else so many flowers, and birds, +and gold-fish, and pet dogs, collected together in an area of two acres +and a half. Banks of particoloured blossoms blazed in the sunshine on +the lawn tier above tier, like the bonnets on the grand stand at Ascot +on a Cup day; marble basins of limpid water and tiny trickling fountains +twinkled and glittered in every direction; fragile colonnades of +delicate ironwork, overhung with jasmine and clematis, honeysuckle and +myrtle-blossom, led away to bowery nooks upon the broad terrace by the +river; and what with the perfume of a million flowers, the gurgling of +blackbirds and thrushes, the carolling of skylarks, the shrill whistling +of a grove of canaries, the cooing of tropical love-birds, the screaming +of paroquets, and the barking of half-a-dozen excited lapdogs, the +stranger, suddenly let loose in Mr. Hillary’s river-side Eden, was apt +to yield himself up for the moment to a state of confusion and +bewilderment. + +The place was in itself bewildering enough for the ordinary mind; +without Miss Hillary--without Miss Hillary! But when Miss Hillary came +sailing out of a drawing-room window, with diaphanous draperies of white +and blue fluttering and spreading round her, and with all manner of +yellow, gold, and purple enamel absurdities dangling at her wrists, and +depending from the loveliest throat and the pinkest ears in +Christendom,--the stranger who was not provided with forty thousand a +year and a coronet, the which to lay at the feet of that adorable +creature, was the weakest of fools if he did not take to his heels there +and then, and fly from the Cedars, never to return thither. If he +stayed, he fully deserved his fate. If, looking at Maude Hillary, and +knowing that he could never hope to win her for his own, he did not +straightway flee from that flowery paradise beside the sunlit river, all +after-agonies endured by his luckless heart were only the natural +consequence of his mad temerity. But then, unhappily, there are so many +mad men in the world. Homburg and Baden-Baden are dangerous places, but +there are crowds of deluded creatures who will haunt the dazzling halls +of the Kursaal, and the elegant saloons of M. Benazet, so long as the +fatal wheel revolves, and the croupier cries, “Make your game, +gentlemen; the game is made.” What can be a more absurd spectacle than a +big blundering moth whirling and fluttering about the flame of a candle? +Yet the incineration of moth A will not be accepted as a warning by moth +B, though he may be a witness of the sacrifice. Younger sons and +briefless barristers, earning a fluctuating income by the exercise of +their talents in light literature; artists; curates, hopeless of rich +preferment,--came, and saw, and were conquered. The man who, being a +bachelor and under thirty years of age, beheld Maude Hillary, and did +_not_ fall in love with her, was made of sterner stuff than the rest of +his race, and must have had in him the material for a Cromwell or a +Robespierre. He must have been a stony, incorruptible, bilious creature, +intended to hold iron sway over his fellow-men; he had no business in +the paradise between Isleworth and Twickenham. + +Shall I describe Maude Hillary as she sails across the lawn this July +morning? I use the word ‘sail,’ as applied to this young lady’s +movements, advisedly; for there was a swimming, undulating motion in her +walk, which was apt to remind one of a lovely white-sailed yacht gliding +far out across an expanse of serene blue water on a summer’s day. Shall +I describe her? No; if I do, stern critics will tell me that she is a +very commonplace young person after all, when it is only my description +that will be commonplace. Her complexion was specially fair and bright; +but it was not because of her fair skin that she was beautiful. Her +features were delicate and harmonious; but those who admired her most +could scarcely have told you whether her nose was nearer to the Grecian +or the Roman type; whether her forehead was low or high, her chin round +or pointed. She was bewitching, rather than beautiful. For if Paris +awarded the apple on purely technical grounds, a thousand lovely English +women might have disputed the prize with Maude Hillary. But I think +Paris would have wished to give her the apple, if only for the pleasure +of seeing her bright face light up into new radiance with the joy of her +triumph; though in strict justice he might feel himself obliged to +bestow the fruit elsewhere. Miss Hillary was bewitching; and people saw +her, and fell in love with her, and bowed themselves down at her feet, +long before they had time to find out that she was not so very beautiful +after all. + +She came winding in and out among the flower-beds now, and betook +herself towards an open temple at one end of the terrace by the river--a +temple of slender marble columns, entwined with ivy and beautiful +ephemeral parasites, whose gaudy blossoms relieved the sombre green. Two +gentlemen, who were disporting themselves with lawn billiards, deserted +that amusement and strolled over to the temple. They went slowly enough, +because they held it vulgar to be in a hurry, and they were very young, +and very much used up as to all the joys and sorrows and excitements of +this earth; but they were over head and ears in love with Miss Hillary +notwithstanding. + +She was not alone. She never was alone. She had for her constant +associates from four to half-a-dozen pet dogs, and Miss Julia Desmond, +her companion. Miss Desmond was by no means the despised companion so +popular in three-volume novels. She was a very dignified young lady, +whose father had been a colonel in ever so many different armies. She +was one of the Desmonds of Castle Desmond, near Limerick, and there were +three peerages in her family, to say nothing of one extinct earldom, +forfeited by reason of high treason on the part of its possessor, the +revival of which, for his own benefit, had been the lifelong dream of +Patrick Macnamara Ryan O’Brien Desmond, until death let fall a curtain +on that and many other fond delusions which had survived unchanged and +changeless to the last in the eternal boyhood of an Irishman’s nature. + +Julia was a very dignified young lady, and had been highly educated in a +Parisian convent, whence she had returned to the south of Ireland to +find the impress of decay upon every object around her, from the +grass-grown roofs of the cottages in the lane below the castle-boundary +to the shattered figure of the brave old colonel. She returned in time +to attend her father’s death-bed, to which Lionel Hillary, his oldest +friend and largest creditor, was summoned by an imploring letter from +the old colonel. To Mr. Hillary the old man confided his penniless +daughter. He had nothing to leave her but a set of old-fashioned garnet +ornaments which had belonged to her mother, and to which he fondly +alluded as the “fam’ly jools;” he had nothing to leave her except this +antique trumpery and his blessing; but he confided her to his largest +creditor, having a vague impression that the largeness of the debt and +the heavy interest he _would_ have given upon all the money lent him by +his friend, had he ever lived to return the principal, laid Mr. Hillary +under a kind of obligation to him. However it was, the London merchant +promised to be a friend and protector to Julia Desmond; and as soon as +the colonel’s funeral was over carried her back to London with him, and +established her in his own house, as the companion of his daughter. A +young lady more or less was of little consequence in such an +establishment as the Cedars; so the merchant thought very lightly of +what he did for Miss Desmond, and Maude Hillary was delighted to have a +friend who was to be her perpetual companion; a friend who could sing a +good second to any duet, and was never out of time in “Blow, gentle +gales,” whensoever a masculine visitor with a good bass organ was to be +procured for the third in that delicious glee. The two girls drove +together, and walked together, and rode together, and played duets on +one piano and on two pianos, or a harp and piano; and went out together +to make water-colour sketches of their favourite bends in the river, +with very blue water and very green willows, and a man in a scarlet +jacket lazily pushing a ferry-boat away from the shore, and a +Newfoundland dog, very black and white and spotty, lying on the bank. + +Julia Desmond led a very pleasant life, and there were people who said +that the colonel’s daughter was a most fortunate person; but for Julia +herself there was just one drop in the cup which was bitter enough to +change the flavour of the entire draught. She was _not_ Maude Hillary. +That was Miss Desmond’s grand grievance. She brooded over it sometimes +when she brushed her hair of a night before the big looking-glass in her +pretty chintz-curtained chamber at the Cedars. Maude had two cheval +glasses that swung upon hinges at each side of her dressing-table, and +Maude had her own maid to brush her hair; but Julia was fain to smooth +her own dark tresses. Miss Desmond thought of her grievance very often +of a night, when she contemplated her face by the light of a pair of wax +candles, and pondered upon the events of the day. She was not Maude +Hillary. She was not sole heiress to one of the largest fortunes--so ran +the common rumour--ever won by City merchant. She had not received half +the attention that had been bestowed upon Miss Hillary during that day. +And if not, why not? Was it because she was less good-looking? Certainly +not. Miss Desmond was a handsome girl, with bold, striking features, and +her black eyes flashed indignation upon the other eyes in the glass at +the mere thought of any personal superiority on the part of Maude +Hillary. Was it because she was less accomplished? No, indeed. Whose +thumbs were the strongest and did most execution in a fantasia by +Thalberg? Whose right little finger was clearest and steadiest in a +prolonged shake? Whose figures in a water-colour sketch stood firmest on +their legs? Miss Desmond’s, of course. But Maude was rich, and Julia was +poor; and the meanness of mankind was testified by the absurd devotion +which they all exhibited for the heiress. Julia was really fond of +Maude, and thought her tolerably pretty; but she did not comprehend the +grand fact that Miss Hillary was one of the most fascinating of women, +and that she herself was not. She was handsome and stylish, and +accomplished and well-bred; but she was not bewitching. When Maude spoke +in a friendly manner to any masculine acquaintance he was apt to be +seized with a mad impulse that prompted him to kiss her there and then, +though eternal banishment from her divine presence would be his +immediate doom. Even women had something of the same feeling when Miss +Hillary talked to them; and perhaps this may be attributed to the fact +that her mouth was the best and most expressive feature in her face. +Such heavenly smiles, such innocently and unconsciously bewitching +variations of expression played perpetually about those lovely rosy +lips, that the harshest woman-hater might have been betrayed into the +admission that amongst nature’s numerous mistakes Maude Hillary’s +creation was an excusable one. Fortune-hunters, who came with mercenary +aspirations, remained to be sincere. Rich young stockbrokers, who +speculated amongst themselves upon the extent of Lionel Hillary’s +wealth, would have gladly taken Maude to wife, “ex everything.” But +Julia Desmond could not understand all this, and she regarded her +benefactor’s daughter as a feminine image of the golden calf, before +which mercenary mankind bowed down in servile worship. + +The two girls seated themselves in the little temple, and the two +worshippers came round and performed their homage. But Miss Hillary had +more to say to her dogs than to the loungers on the lawn. + +“Good morning, Captain Masters.--Floss, you are the naughtiest +darling.--Haven’t I told you once before, Scrub, that Honiton lace is +_not_ good to eat?--Papa has not come home yet, I suppose, Mr. +Somerset?--That tiresome City makes a kind of orphan of me, doesn’t it, +Julia? We never have papa to go with us anywhere now, do we, Julia?--No, +Peasblossom, anything but a locket with papa’s hair in it. _That_ must +not be worried.--When are we to go to the _fête_, Captain Masters?” + +The captain shrugged his shoulders. He was very young, and held every +thing upon earth, except Maude, in supreme detestation and contempt. + +“As from four to five is about the hottest period in the entire day, I +believe the _fête_ is supposed to be at its best somewhere between four +and five,” he said; “we manage these things so remarkably well in +England.” + +“But as the Duke and Duchess are both French, I suppose the management +of the _fête_ at the Château de Bourbon is French too, isn’t it?” asked +Miss Desmond. + +Maude was occupied with a Scotch terrier, who was making ferocious snaps +at the jasmine trailing from the roof above her. She would have made a +charming subject for a modern Greuze, with the dog held up in her hands, +and the loose white muslin sleeves falling back from those fair rounded +arms in soft cloudy folds. + +“The Duke and Duchess are very charming,” said Mr. Somerset; “and when +one thinks that if they had lived in seventeen ninety-three, instead of +eighteen forty-eight, they’d have been inevitably guillotined on the +Place Louis Quinze, instead of being comfortably settled in the +neighbourhood of Isleworth, one feels an extraordinary kind of interest +in them as living illustrations of improvement of the times. But, apart +from that, Miss Hillary, don’t you think the _fête_ a bore? Don’t you +think any charity _fête_ more or less a bore? I can understand people +sending you a subscription list, and telling their man to wait in your +hall till you write a cheque for them; but I can’t understand people +choosing the hottest day in a hot summer to parade about a garden, +grinning and smirking at one another, and giving exorbitant prices for +things they don’t want.” + +“But you mean to go to the _fête_, Mr. Somerset?” + +“Most decidedly, if I am to have the honour of going with you--and Miss +Desmond.” + +Miss Desmond, with one flash of her black eyes, expressed her +appreciation of the little pause that had preceded Mr. Somerset’s +mention of her name. + +“Yes, I suppose we are to take you with us,” Maude answered, with cruel +carelessness. “Papa said that if he were not home at three, we were to +go without him, and he would meet us at the château,--and it’s past +three now, I declare, Julia, and we’re not dressed,” added Miss Hillary, +looking at her watch; “and papa is always so particular about +punctuality. Wasn’t it Lord Nelson who won the battle of Trafalgar +through always being a quarter of an hour beforehand? I almost wish the +French had beaten him, for then people couldn’t have quoted him against +one perpetually. Will you order the carriage, Julia, dear?--or will you +tell them about it, Mr. Somerset? The landau, with the bays; papa said +the bays were to be used to-day.--Now Julia, dear.” + +The two girls ran away to dress, and reappeared in about twenty minutes; +Julia very splendid in a golden-brown silk dress, and a pale pink +bonnet; Miss Hillary in cloud-like garments of lace, or tulle, or +areophane, that were especially becoming to her tall slender figure and +the fragile style of her beauty. Maude Hillary was a very extravagant +young lady, and had _carte blanche_ at Messrs. Howell and James’s, on +whose account her father was wont to write heavy cheques at long +intervals, without any investigation of the items; but Miss Hillary very +seldom wore silk dresses, which are, after all, about the most +economical thing a lady can wear. She affected gauzy fabrics, all +festoons, and puffings and flounces, which were thrown aside for the +profit of her maid after the third time of wearing, and ultimately +figured in second-hand wardrobe repositories in the dreariest outskirts +of Pimliconia. Indeed, one devoted admirer of Miss Hillary, penetrating +Vauxhall bridgewards from Eccleston Square, had been startled by the +apparition of his lovely partner at a recent ball dangling limply, +rosebuds and all, from a peg in a dingy shop-window. + +Maude was very extravagant; but then how could she well be otherwise? +Her appreciation of “pounds” was very little above that of Mr. Harold +Skimpole. She very rarely had any money; if she wanted shillings, she +borrowed them--by the handful--of the housekeeper at the Cedars. But, on +the other hand, she had unlimited credit almost everywhere. A beggar, or +one of the churchwardens of Isleworth, armed with a plate after a +charity-sermon, were about the only persons who ever demanded ready +money from her. She had a vague idea that there was no limit to her +father’s wealth, and that she was to have as much of it as she required +for her own uses whenever she married, if he approved of her marriage; +and if he did not approve, she would not have the money, and would be +poor, and live in a pretty cottage somewhere in the neighbourhood of St. +John’s Wood, without so much as a pair of ponies to drive in the Park. +She looked forward very vaguely to this sort of thing, always believing +that the most indulgent of fathers would come by-and-by to smile upon +the penniless Harcourt Lowther, and that everything would end happily, +as it does in a comedy. She sighed now and then, and told her +confidante, Julia, that she was the most miserable of creatures when she +thought of poor dear Harcourt slaving himself to death in that dreadful +Van Diemen’s Land; but, on the whole, she bore her separation from her +affianced lover with considerable resignation. Was she not by nature a +bright and hopeful creature? and had she not from babyhood inhabited a +kind of fairy circle, separated from all the common outer world by a +golden boundary, sheltered from every rude breath of heaven by a +limitless canopy of banknotes? + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + + + + CHAPTER VIII. + + AT THE CHÂTEAU DE BOURBON. + + +The château in which some of the banished descendants of Louis the Great +had set up their household gods, in the shape of a most exquisite +collection of artistic treasures, was only a mile or so distant from Mr. +Hillary’s house. It was an old red-brick mansion like the Cedars; and, +indeed, the banks of the Thames seem specially rich in red-brick +mansions of the Georgian period. It was a noble old house, and had +extended itself of late years on either side, until it was almost +palatial of aspect. It was a very pretty house, filled to overflowing +with art-treasures, about almost every one of which there hung a history +as interesting as the object itself. Royalty, the banished royalty of +France, inhabited that simple suburban mansion; and on the smooth lawn, +where the pennants were flying and the band playing, a quiet-looking +gentleman moved about among the visitors, whose grave and noble face was +the exact reproduction of another face, to be seen in stained marble +under a glass case within the mansion; the face of a gentleman who, in +the course of an adventurous career, won some little distinction under +the style and title of Henry IV., King of France and Navarre. + +It was almost like going back into the past for an hour or so to lounge +on that sunny lawn at Twickenham, so strange yet so familiar were some +of the names that were heard on the lips of the crowd. There was a +mournful kind of interest in those historic titles; and the aspect of +the pretty flower-festooned marquees, where elegant women were charging +fabulous prices for all manner of absurdities in the way of Berlin wool, +recalled the image of tented plains and fields of cloth-of-gold, in the +days when the sons of St. Louis had other and more high-sounding +business in this world than such gentle works of charity as occupied +them pleasantly enough to-day. + +Maude Hillary was in her glory in the gardens of the Château de Bourbon. +She had plenty of ready money, for once in a way; a crisp little bundle +of five-pound notes, which her father had brought from the City on the +previous evening; and she distributed her wealth freely among the +fashionable stall-keepers, loading herself and her attendant cavaliers +with wax dolls and Berlin-wool work, reticules, antimacassars, painted +fire-screens, bottles of toilet vinegar, and feather flowers. She knew a +great many people, and she was so bright and animated, and +happy-looking, that people who were utter strangers to her watched her +with a feeling of interest, and asked one another who she was. She was +standing amidst a group of aristocratic acquaintance upon the terrace +overlooking the river, when she cried out that her papa had arrived, and +ran away to meet him, leaving Julia Desmond and the two young men behind +her. + +“An hour after your time, papa,” she said, putting both her hands into +his; “and I’ve spent all my money, and I’ve bought these for you.” She +flourished a pair of gorgeously-embroidered slippers before his eyes, +and then put her arm through his with an air of proprietorship that was +as charming as--every thing else she did. + +Lionel Hillary, Australian merchant, of Moorgate Street, London, was a +handsome-looking man, tall, and stout, and dark, with iron-grey hair and +whiskers, and very unlike his daughter in every respect; for the happy +brightness which was the chief element of her beauty found no reflection +in his face. He looked very grave, and a little careworn; and Maude, +watching him closely, said presently, + +“I’m afraid you have one of your headaches again to-day, papa?” + +“Yes, my dear; I’ve been working rather hard this morning. Let me +introduce you to this gentleman, whom I have induced to come and spend a +little of his money for the benefit of the Duchess’s poor people.” + +This gentleman was Mr. Francis Tredethlyn, who had been loitering a +little in the rear of Lionel Hillary while the merchant talked to his +daughter. The two men had become acquainted with each other in the +simplest possible manner. Amongst the property Francis Tredethlyn had +inherited from his uncle was a bundle of shares in a certain Australian +insurance company of which Mr. Hillary was a director. Francis, wanting +to make some inquiry about the shares, had been advised to go to Mr. +Hillary, and had done so. He found the merchant very cordial and +friendly,--he had found a great many people in these dispositions +towards him lately,--and with the frankness natural to him had told a +good deal of his story to that gentleman; always avoiding any allusion +to his cousin Susan. Lionel Hillary, being much pleased with his manner, +and being generally very kind and hospitable to any young men who came +in his way, had offered to drive his new acquaintance down to +Twickenham. + +“You must find London miserably dull at this time of year,” he said. +“There’s a _fête_, or a fancy fair, or something of that kind, our way. +I’ll drive you down, and you shall dine at my place afterwards.” + +Thus it was that Francis Tredethlyn found himself upon the lawn before +the Château de Bourbon, making what he felt to be a very awkward bow, +and most heartily wishing that some convulsion of nature might open a +ready-made grave in the smooth turf on which he stood, wherein he might +hide himself from the bright eyes of Miss Hillary. + +She spoke to him in the easiest, friendliest manner; asked him if he had +ever been to the château before; if he liked a fancy fair; hoped he +meant to spend EVER so much money. She opened her eyes very wide as she +said this, and he saw how blue they were, and then felt an actual blush +kindling under his brown skin. Such a woman as this had never before +walked by his side, talking to him, and smiling at him. He answered her +animated inquiries as best he might, and found himself thinking of all +manner of incongruous things,--of Maude Hillary’s blue eyes and +point-lace parasol, of his own awkwardness and ignorance, of the narrow +points of her dove-coloured boots, as they peeped from under her dress +now and then, like anything in the world you like _except_ Sir John +Suckling’s mice, of the old farmhouse on the Cornish moorland, of little +Susy in a white dimity sun-bonnet. + +He had never been in such a place before, mixing on equal terms with +well-dressed men and women, about most of whom even he, in despite of +his ignorance, recognized a nameless something that stamped them as +superior to the common run of well-dressed people. That in itself was +enough to bewilder him. He had never before seen such a woman as Maude +Hillary; and even experienced young men from Government offices found +Maude Hillary bewildering. He felt terribly embarrassed and out of +place; and after undergoing a sharp ordeal on the terrace, where he was +introduced to Miss Desmond, and the two young men staying at the Cedars, +he was not a little rejoiced to find himself free for a few minutes, +while Mr. Hillary and his daughter talked to a group of new arrivals. He +strolled away to the end of the terrace, and lounged upon the marble +balustrade, looking down at a lane below--a kind of gorge cut through +two separate gardens, in which some of the common folks of the +neighbourhood were gathered, listening to the music of the band, and +staring at the splendid line of carriages waiting for the guests in the +gardens above. + +“I didn’t think I was such a fool as to let my brains be muddled like +this by a lot of fine dresses and parasols, and flower-beds, and the +playing of a brass band,” he thought; “they’re flesh and blood, those +people, I suppose, like the rest of us. _She’s_ flesh and blood, just as +much as my mother that’s dead and gone, or poor little Susy. But when I +looked at her just now, it seemed as if there was a light shining all +about her somehow, that almost blinded me. She spoke to me as prettily +and as kindly as she spoke to her father; and yet I felt more afraid of +her than if she had been my uncle Oliver, and I a little boy again, +tumbling down his corn in the valley farm.” + +He moved a little way from the balustrade, and stood looking rather +sheepishly towards the group he had left, doubtful whether he was +expected to rejoin them, or to stroll about by himself, amusing himself +as he pleased. He would have given a great deal of money for the poorest +treatise on etiquette which would have told him as much as this; and in +the mean time he lingered where he was, twirling a very big pair of +lavender gloves which he had bought--through the agency of Mr. Hillary’s +groom, and with no reference to their adaptability to his own hands--on +the way down. + +Lingering thus, doubtful of himself, and painfully conscious of being +very much out of keeping with the scene around him, he still thought of +all manner of incongruous things; and among other fancies one special +thought, which could have had no possible connection with the events of +the day, kept surging upwards on the troubled sea of his reflections. + +“I never loved my cousin Susan,” he thought; “I know now that I never +really loved my cousin Susan.” + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + + + + CHAPTER IX. + + JULIA DESMOND MAKES HERSELF AGREEABLE. + + +Captain Masters drove Lionel Hillary’s phaeton to the Cedars, when the +crowd in the sunny gardens before the Château de Bourbon had dispersed, +and only a few scattered groups still lingered about the pleasant home +of exiled royalty. Amongst which loiterers might be observed some lively +gentlemen of the occasional-reporter species, who wanted to ascertain +whether there would not be something in the champagne and lobster-salad +way before the _fête_ was finished. Captain Masters drove his friend Mr. +Somerset back to the Cedars in the mail-phaeton, while Lionel Hillary +and Francis Tredethlyn went home with the ladies in the landau. + +The man who had been a private soldier only a few months before that +day, and who had not yet been able to realize the change made in his +position by the inheritance of thirty thousand a year, found himself +oppressed by a strange feeling as he sat in Miss Hillary’s open carriage +with his back to the horses, surrounded by billows of silk and lace and +muslin, a surging sea of feminine draperies, from which a faint perfume +was wafted towards him as the summer wind blew in his face. It was not +so much that he was ill at ease in that feminine presence, or in any way +daunted by the fire of two pairs of handsome eyes. The feeling which +oppressed him was rather a sense of unreality. He was like a child at a +pantomime, who sees a stage-fairy for the first time, and cannot believe +that the resplendent creature is only flesh and blood. He looked at +Maude Hillary, and thought of his cousin Susan’s rosy cheeks and brown +hair shaded by the familiar dimity sun-bonnet. There were men in the +world who might aspire to marry such a creature as this Miss Hillary. He +tried to imagine the sort of man who might lift his eyes to that +divinity; and there arose in his mind the picture of a grandiose +creature with yellow whiskers and a geranium in his button-hole. The +æsthetic element in Mr. Tredethlyn’s mind was as yet very imperfectly +developed; and his idea of a lover befitting Maude Hillary leaned rather +to the gaudy king’s-pattern order of mankind. + +The Australian merchant sat with his head leaning back against the +cushions of the carriage and his eyes closed. His headache was, if +anything, worse, he confessed, in answer to Maude’s anxious inquiries. +He did not speak three times during the homeward drive, and his daughter +rarely took her eyes from his face. She was very fond of him, and +displayed her affection for him now as frankly as she had done when she +had been a little girl in a white frock, sitting on his knee after +dinner, and eating unwholesome fruits and confections out of his plate. +She watched him now with a tender anxiety in her face, and seemed almost +unconscious of the presence of the big soldier-like individual with a +bronzed countenance and close-cropped black hair. But Francis Tredethlyn +was not entirely neglected, for Miss Desmond appeared determined to +atone for Maude’s want of courtesy. She had heard the Cornishman’s story +from Mr. Somerset, who had heard it from a gentleman whom he described +as “a fellow in the 11th Hussars;” and the handsome Julia felt some +little interest in the hero of the narrative. An ignorant young man, a +farmer’s son, who has suddenly come into a fortune of thirty thousand a +year, is not the sort of person to be met with every day. Julia +remembered that dreary ruin, that tall stone gaol on the bare hill +beyond Limerick, which sounded so well when casually alluded to as +Castle Desmond; but whose image chilled her as it rose, dismal and +stony, before her mind’s eye. She remembered the muddy roads, the +murderous ruts, the broad acres of irredeemable bog, the long rank grass +waving on the roofs of tumbledown stone cabins, the gaunt pigs and +gaunter peasantry; and a feeling that was not altogether ignoble kindled +a sudden flush upon her handsome face. What could not be done for Castle +Desmond and those ill-used peasantry by a chieftainess who should have +thirty thousand a year at her command! She fancied herself a kind of +fairy queen, beneath whose wand pleasant homesteads might arise on those +desolate hills, and yellow cornfields spread a golden mantle over the +valleys now so bare and empty. Miss Desmond’s lot in life was altogether +exceptional, and the sentimental dreams which come to some young women +had no lodgment in her brain. She looked her fate straight in the face, +and was eager to make the best of any opportunity that might fall in her +way. For the present she was very well off where she was; though the +worship of the golden calf, as represented by Maude Hillary, was a +perpetual abomination to her. But she was tolerably resigned to her +present position at the Cedars. It was only in the future that her life +looked dark and threatening. She must marry before Miss Hillary,--that +was essential,--or else she must resign herself to the miserable +position of a companion on sufferance, necessary to Maude, perhaps, but +very disagreeable to Maude’s husband. + +Under these circumstances, a chance visitor at the Cedars with thirty +thousand a year for his fortune was not a person to be disdainfully +entreated even by the daughter of all the Desmonds: so Julia was very +kind to Francis Tredethlyn during that brief homeward drive, asked him +all manner of questions respecting his sentiments upon things in general +and the charity _fête_ in particular, and flashed her handsome eyes and +white teeth upon him until he was almost dazzled by their brightness. +Miss Desmond had very dark eyes--eyes that seemed of a greenish hazel +when you saw them in repose, but which looked almost black when they +sparkled athwart a fringe of dusky lashes. She had dark eyes and very +white teeth; and the distinguishing characteristic of her face was the +contrast between the darkness of one and the white glitter of the other. +Mr. Tredethlyn knew that the young lady was very handsome, and that +there was some condescension involved in her friendly notice of him; but +his eyes wandered away to Maude’s fair face and earnest blue eyes, and +there was a suspicion of irrelevance in some of his replies to Miss +Desmond’s animated questions. If he had been less absent-minded, he +might have seen that young lady’s white teeth close vengefully upon her +lower lip as she turned from him after one of those doubtful answers. + +The dinner at the Cedars went off very quietly. Mr. Hillary was silent, +but hospitable, or at least as much so as a man can be in these days of +Russian dinners and vicarious hospitality. Francis had lodged at a +comfortable hotel in the regions of Covent Garden since his return from +Cornwall, and had in no way altered his simple habits of life; so he was +not a little puzzled by the array of glasses by the side of his plate, +the lumps of ice which an obsequious attendant dropped ever and anon +into his Moselle, the mysterious compounds in silver dishes which he +discovered suddenly at his elbow whenever he was most abstracted by the +novelty of the scene about him, and the vision of Maude Hillary, sitting +on the other side of the round table in a cloud of white and blue. The +dishes at that wonderful feast seemed so many culinary conundrums to Mr. +Tredethlyn, and I fear that he made some very obvious mistakes in the +management of the spoons and forks perpetually thrust upon him by the +stealthy-footed retainers. But the dinner was over at last, and Captain +Masters opened the dining-room door for the departure of the ladies, +while poor Francis could only sit blankly staring like a countryman at a +play. Lionel Hillary did not linger long over his wine; he had some +papers to look at in his study, he said, and excused himself on that +ground, as well as on account of that obstinate headache of his. The +young men seemed very glad to be released from the atmosphere of +hothouse flowers and pine-apple, faintly mingled with that odour of the +bygone dinner which will hang round the most elegant dining-room, +ventilate it as you will. Was not Maude Hillary in the drawing-room, +whence already might be heard the sparkling ripple of arpeggio passages +upon the piano? The two young loungers followed Mr. Hillary out into the +hall, and Francis went with them, uncomfortably conscious of +disadvantages not to be outbalanced by the possession of half a million +or so in all manner of seven-per-cent-paying investments. The young +soldier blacking his master’s boots had been the easiest-mannered of +mankind; but Oliver Tredethlyn’s heir felt terribly embarrassed in Maude +Hillary’s presence--only in her presence; he was not at all abashed by +Miss Desmond’s eyes and teeth, though all their contrastive brightness +was brought to bear upon him. Maude was at the piano, and Julia was +bending over a stand of engravings. It may be that she had not very long +fallen into that graceful attitude. When the three young men entered the +room she looked up, and Mr. Tredethlyn meeting her friendly glance, and +being considerably at a loss what to do with himself, went over to her, +and found a comfortable haven in a low easy-chair near the couch on +which she was sitting. + +“Do you care much for Leech, Mr. Tredethlyn?” she asked, as she turned +over the leaves of a portfolio reprinted from _Punch_. + +The young man looked rather puzzled by this question. + +“I don’t care much for them,” he answered, frankly. “I never had any but +once, and that was in Van Diemen’s Land, when I had the fever,--fifteen +of them on my temples, and that was no joke, you know, Miss Desmond.” + +He was quite at his ease with Julia; but he would not for the world have +been so confidential to Maude Hillary. Miss Desmond laughed +good-naturedly. + +“I don’t mean those horrible creatures that they put on one’s temples,” +she exclaimed, “but Mr. John Leech, the caricaturist. You must have seen +_Punch_, even in Van Diemen’s Land?” + +“Oh, yes! my mas--superior officer used to get it from his mother every +mail.” + +He took the portfolio from Miss Desmond, and turned over the leaves: but +he only stared absently at Mr. Leech’s most brilliant performances, and +his eyes wandered away every now and then to the piano, where Maude +Hillary was skimming through the gems of a new opera and dallying with +her two adorers, deliciously unconscious of their adoration. Had she not +inhabited an atmosphere of universal admiration and affection ever since +she had exhibited her pink cheeks and infantile ringlets in company with +the seven-shilling March peaches and five-guinea pine-apples, after her +father’s pompous dinners, to be admired by ponderous old City magnates +in the pauses of solemn discussions upon the rate of discount and the +last grand crash on the Stock Exchange? + +Julia Desmond, always observant--cursed, perhaps, with an especial +faculty for penetrating all unpleasant secrets lying hidden under the +many masks which society has invented for the convenience of +mankind--Miss Desmond, I say, was not slow to perceive the Cornishman’s +preoccupation, nor slow to credit Miss Hillary with another item in that +heavy account so long standing between them. + +“Even this country boor, with a great fortune of his own, must pay his +meed of homage to the millionaire’s daughter,” thought Julia. “Is there +some magical power in the possession of money which imparts a kind of +fascination to the possessor?” Colonel Desmond’s daughter had felt some +of the keenest stings of poverty, and it may be that she had grown to +entertain an exaggerated estimation of that golden dross which is so +paltry a thing when considered in a philosophical spirit. She looked at +the young man sitting by her side; and as she looked, a mystic golden +halo seemed to arise about him and surround him, until he appeared +almost like an old picture of a saint, painted upon a shadowless +background of gold. Thirty thousand a year! and he was young, handsome, +manly, good-tempered-looking, or even something more than this; for +there was a dash of nobility in his simple bearing which scarcely seemed +to belong to the runaway son of a small farmer. The good old blood of +the Tredethlyns, once squires and landowners of some degree, was not +dishonoured by the young man who had blacked Harcourt Lowther’s boots in +Van Diemen’s Land. He was not a gentleman after the manner of the +nineteenth century; he seemed rather like a stalwart soldier of the +past, simple and daring, frank and generous. Julia, contemplating him +always enframed in the golden halo, saw that, with the advantage of a +clever woman’s training, he might be made a very presentable creature; +in spite of that private-soldier story, which, after all, was spiced +with a certain flavour of romance. + +“People would say I married him for his money,” thought Miss Desmond; +“but then they would say that if I married a provincial banker with +fifteen hundred a year. Thirty thousand! thirty thousand a year!--and he +is not a man who would act meanly in the matter of a settlement--and he +could buy the Irish estate for a mere song--and he might call himself +Tredethlyn Desmond.” + +Maude Hillary’s companion and friend had employed herself for a very +long time in the consideration of one grand subject--her own destiny. +For a long time she had estimated every creature who came in her way by +one unvarying gauge. Had he, or had he not, any bearing on that supreme +question? If the answer were in the negative, Miss Desmond wasted no +further thought upon the useless creature. But if she saw in the shadowy +distance some possible combination of circumstances in which the +individual might become a thread, however slightly interwoven, in the +fabric of her destiny, Julia expended her brightest smiles and sweetest +words for his gratification. + +It was in no way strange, therefore, that the young lady who had given a +good deal of attention to hare-brained young ensigns and penniless young +curates with nothing better than remote expectations, should consider +Mr. Tredethlyn worthy of her most serious deliberation. The present, +however, was no time for thought,--for were not the young man’s eyes +perpetually wandering towards the slender figure under the light of the +moderator lamp? Miss Desmond felt there was no time to be lost. Already +the rich man had made his election--already he had enrolled himself in +the list of Maude Hillary’s victims. Another woman, perceiving the state +of affairs, might have resigned herself to the loss of this grand chance +of winning a rich husband; but Julia’s courage was not so easily dashed. +It rose, rather, with the thought of contest. Had not her father been a +grand old freebooter, boasting of kingly blood in his battered old body, +and spilling it under the colours of every rebel army in modern Europe? +The Desmond spirit rose in Julia’s breast as she saw Francis +Tredethlyn’s wandering glances, half sheepish, half unconscious. + +“I can set myself against her this time,” she thought; “and the battle +between us will be a fair one. _This_ man cannot be a fortune-hunter. We +meet on tolerably equal terms for once in a way, Miss Hillary, and let +us see who will win.” + +Julia’s dark eyes flashed their brightest as she looked across all the +width of the room to the radiant-looking girl at the piano; and then she +turned them suddenly upon Francis Tredethlyn, and began to talk to him. +She began to talk to him, and, more than this, she made him listen to +her. Miss Desmond was a brilliant talker. She possessed that wondrous +faculty vulgarly called the gift of the gab,--the power of talking about +everything and anything, or even about nothing, for the matter of that; +the power of enchaining a listener in spite of himself, holding him +prisoner when he had rather be away, and yet not detaining him an +altogether unwilling prisoner;--the power of talking ignorantly, without +seeming to be ignorant; speculating ideas and allusions at a venture, +and never betraying the shallowness of their nature; assuming an +interest in the most uninteresting subject, and never revealing the +hollowness of the assumption,--a power, in short, which in its +fascination seems like a modern form of those classic philtres which +Roman maidens were wont to administer to eligible bachelors in the days +when Rome was young. It may be said that Miss Desmond owed this faculty +in some degree to her Hibernian ancestry; but no suspicion of their +native accent vulgarized her discourse. Only a softer and richer depth +in her low voice betrayed her Celtic origin. + +Julia began to talk to Francis Tredethlyn, and, in spite of himself, he +listened, and was fain to withdraw his gaze from the distant figure at +the piano. She talked to him of a soldier’s life, jumping recklessly at +conclusions, and taking it for granted that he must needs possess some +latent spark of military ardour, which would blaze up into a flame under +the fire of her enthusiasm. She talked to him of her father, and all +those guerrilla warfares in which he had won distinction. She talked of +Don Carlos, and Abd-el-Kader, and Garibaldi, whose name had not then the +glorious significance which it carries with it to-day. She talked to him +like a young Joan of Arc or an embryo maid of Saragosa;--and all that +was brightest in Mr. Tredethlyn’s nature kindled beneath her influence. +Had Francis been a stockbroker, Miss Desmond would have discoursed to +him of Lionel Rothschild, or Lafitte, or Mirès; and she would have +glowed with just the same enthusiasm, though her theme had been the +Stock Exchange or the Bourse. + +But in spite of himself Mr. Tredethlyn was pleased and interested. His +boyish yearning for a military career had been very nearly trampled out +of him during dreary years of marchings and counter-marchings, and +sword-exercise, and barrack-tyranny, with never the glimpse of a +battle-field, or so much as a brief skirmish with some chance enemy. But +those fresh young feelings all came back to him when Julia discoursed in +low eloquent accents of her father’s foreign experiences. “Ah, that was +something like a military career!” thought the young man. “It was such a +life that I hoped to lead when I ran away from Landresdale; and I +thought I should come back a general, with a cocked-hat and a great +plume of feathers, as the gardener’s son does in the play I saw once at +Falmouth.” + +And then Francis Tredethlyn, being by nature candid as a schoolboy newly +come home for his holidays, opened his heart to Miss Desmond, and told +her a good deal about his life. That dark chamber of his memory in which +Susan’s image loomed through the sombre shadows he kept religiously +sealed from every curious eye. But on all other subjects he was very +communicative. He did not tell Julia that he had been Mr. Lowther’s +body-servant; for there was something in that estate of servitude which +had never been entirely pleasant to him, gallantly as he had borne +himself under its serious ordeals. He had known poverty, he told Miss +Desmond, in all its worst bitterness, and had seen his mother and father +die broken-hearted, borne down by a load of petty debt and difficulty, +when the loan of a couple of hundred pounds would have saved them. + +“I felt altogether desperate one night, Miss Desmond,” he said, “when my +poor mother was at her worst, and my father sitting in the kitchen as +helpless as a child,--almost daft, as they say in the north. I felt +desperate somehow, and I went out of the house and ran all the way to +Tredethlyn Grange, and asked my uncle Oliver to lend me the money. He +laughed in my face, Miss Desmond, and told me he hadn’t a five-pound +note in the house; and I dare say he spoke the truth, for I think he’d +have gone half crazy at the thought of a sovereign lying idle. I went +back to the farm, and--my mother died the next day.” + +He stopped, and sat for some minutes looking at Mr. Hillary’s Axminster +carpet. Julia did not say anything. She was too perfect a tactician not +to know that anything she could say must appear commonplace at such a +moment. She only drew a long breath, a kind of fluttering sigh, +expressive of the deepest sympathy. + +“My mother died, Miss Desmond,” the young man went on; “and my father +was not slow to follow her. So, having no one in the world to care for, +except--except a cousin, who had been like a sister to me, I ran away to +Falmouth, and enlisted in a foot regiment, thinking that I had but to +pin a bunch of colours in my hat and march straight off to some field of +battle. I left Cornwall, Miss Desmond; but I never forgot that night +before my mother’s death. I’ve tried to feel grateful to my uncle Oliver +for leaving me this fortune, but I can’t. I ought to feel grateful, I +suppose; but I can’t. The memory of that night sours me, somehow. Money +seems such paltry stuff, after all, when you think that all the golden +coin in this world can’t bring back one human creature from the grave.” + +“Ah, yes, indeed,” Miss Desmond murmured, in her tenderest voice. + +And then, being blest with a very lively imagination, she found herself +wondering whether, if wealth had been potent to restore the dead, and +she had been possessed with wealth, she would have very much cared to +awaken Patrick Macnamara Ryan O’Brien Desmond from his quiet slumber in +a little churchyard beside the winding Shannon. The old soldier of +fortune was better in his grave perhaps, Julia thought, philosophically. +She had begun to fight the battle of life on her own tactics, and had no +very great opinion of her late father’s strategy. + +“He was very clever,” she thought, with a tender remembrance of the +Major’s best manœuvres; “but then one so often saw through him. He +always started with wrong premises, and fancied everyone but himself was +a fool: as if there could be any merit in deceiving only stupid people.” +Miss Desmond was always wise enough to remember that the larger art of +talking well comprehends the smaller art of listening gracefully. She +was not one of those obnoxious people who talk for the sake of talking; +and who, after rattling on without a full-stop for half an hour at a +stretch, will stare vacantly at you while you recite to them some +interesting adventure, evidently thinking of what they mean to say next, +and waiting for the chance of cutting in. Julia Desmond talked with a +purpose,--not because she wanted to talk, but because she wished to +please: and now she listened to Francis Tredethlyn with an unfailing +show of sympathy and interest, that beguiled him on to tell her more and +more. She wound and insinuated herself into his confidence as a +beautiful serpentine creature winds itself into the heart of an +apparently impenetrable forest; and before the evening was finished Mr. +Tredethlyn found himself almost as intimate with this splendid southern +Irishwoman as if she had been his sister. She had set him completely at +his ease; so that he no longer felt out of place in Mr. Hillary’s +gorgeous rooms: and when the merchant, coming into the drawing-room at +eleven o’clock, very pale and worn-looking, asked him to dine at the +Cedars on the following Sunday, Francis unhesitatingly accepted the +invitation. He stole just one glance at Maude as he did so; but she was +in the act of exhibiting one of the newest accomplishments of a +mouse-coloured Skye terrier for the edification of the two young +loungers, and she was quite unconscious of that shy look from Mr. +Tredethlyn’s eyes. He went to her presently to wish her good-night, and +the spell of her gracious presence dazed and bewildered him, to the cost +of the mouse-coloured terrier, upon whose silky paws he trampled in his +embarrassment; and then, essaying to shake hands in a gentlemanly +manner, he forgot what a stalwart giant he was, and squeezed the little +hand that rested so lightly in his, until Maude’s fingers were wounded +by the hoops, and clusters, and hearts, and crescents of diamonds and +opals which twinkled and flashed upon them;--for Miss Hillary had seen +the Marchioness of Londonderry’s famous rings, and never wore any vulgar +mixture of many-coloured jewels upon her pretty white hands. Francis +lingered a little after saying good-night, helpless under the spell of +the enchantress, and then made his way somehow or other out of the room. +Ah! surely uncle Oliver’s money was not such sordid dross, after all, +when it was the golden key which admitted him to that paradise on the +banks of the Thames. + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + + + + CHAPTER X. + + COLTONSLOUGH. + + +Francis Tredethlyn went back to his hotel in Covent Garden after that +quiet dinner at the Cedars, and his mind was full of the new images +suggested by that brief glimpse of a life that was strange to him. He +had been very much interested by Miss Desmond, and he tried to believe +that he preferred her to Maude Hillary. Had she not been kinder to him, +more friendly and familiar? and was it not reasonable that he should +like her the better of the two? He was naturally of a grateful +disposition, disposed to think meanly of his own merits; and he +attributed all Miss Desmond’s kindness to the purest promptings of a +benevolent disposition. The idea that the young lady had regarded him +from a speculative point of view, that she had entertained any notion of +possible marriage contracts and settlements, by which she might acquire +the use of his thirty thousand per annum, never for a moment entered Mr. +Tredethlyn’s mind. He knew, in a general way, that he was admitted to +Mr. Hillary’s drawing-room because his money gave him a kind of right to +such society as that of the merchant’s household; but he never for a +moment imagined that any one of these delightful and high-bred creatures +could contemplate any contingency by which his money might become of +service to them. Wealth and beauty, elegance and refinement, seemed to +find their natural home at the Cedars. Miss Desmond of course was rich, +like Miss Hillary. + +Francis counted the days which must elapse before that delightful +Sabbath to be spent by him at the Cedars. Only three days, and during +those three days stern duty called him away from London. Had he not +declared himself ready to go to the end of the world in search of his +cousin Susan Tredethlyn? He felt ashamed even of that one wasted day on +the banks of the Thames. He had left his hotel in the morning, intending +to despatch his City business with all possible speed, and start +immediately afterwards for Coltonslough. He had found out all about +Coltonslough by means of all manner of inquiries; for it seemed rather +an out-of-the-way place, known to very few people as yet. Indeed, +Coltonslough turned out to be a recently discovered watering-place on +the Essex coast, a place whose shores were supposed to be washed by the +salt waves of the ocean; but the waste of waters that rolled along the +muddy shores of Coltonslough was only an ocean in its hobbledehoyhood, +and savoured too much of the Thames and Medway to be considered a +full-grown sea. + +To the traveller who has grown familiar with the centre of Africa; to +that bold explorer who has spent lonely days and nights amidst those +darksome forests in which the forgotten cities of America lie buried; to +the prisoner newly released from solitary confinement in the great +prison-house of New York, so pleasantly entitled the Tombs--to one of +these a newly discovered watering-place may not appear dull. He who has +been used to hear no more familiar voice than the distant cry of the +bittern, far away amongst the swampy wildernesses, may endure Herne Bay +and live. The criminal who has undergone a decade of solitary +confinement in the Tombs may possibly survive a month at Southend: but +to the ordinary mind there is a modern abomination of desolation lurking +in the unfinished terraces of a budding watering-place, or in a +watering-place which has put forth its tender blossoms in the way of +bow-windowed receptacles for the concentrated bleakness of perpetual +east winds, and has been blighted in the bud. + +Coltonslough was very young; it was in the most infantine stage of +watering-place existence. Speculative builders had bought half-a-dozen +plots of swamp and mud, and had erected dismal rows of houses, which +turned their backs upon one another, and started off at right angles +from one another, in utter contempt for all uniformity. If the +melancholy sojourner at Coltonslough was of an active turn of mind, he +was apt to be tormented by a wild desire to pull down and re-arrange +those straggling terraces, between which stretched hideous deserts of +waste ground, with here and there a lurking pitfall, whence gravel, or +sand, or clay, or chalk, had been dug by unknown persons, who seemed +always digging something or other out of Coltonslough, whereby an +appearance of volcanic disruption was imparted to a place whose chief +merit had been its agreeable flatness. + +It was very young. A few straggling excursionists came on the blazing +summer Sundays, and prowled about the shore with countenances expressive +of supreme disappointment and disgust. Half-a-dozen families of cockney +children were wont to congregate by the dismal waters every summer, +provided with baskets for the collection of shells--and there were no +shells at Coltonslough,--and further provided with wooden spades for the +undermining of sand--and there was no sand at that baby watering-place. +Families did certainly come, beguiled by representations of impossibly +cheap provisions, though the place was in reality very expensive, for +every tradesman was a monopolist on a small scale. Families came, but no +family ever came a second time to Coltonslough; and it may be that, in +the wonderful scheme of the universe, this new-born watering-place was +not without its special use; inasmuch as it made people contented with +London. The inhabitant of Bermondsey, returning to that locality after a +sojourn at Coltonslough, found beauties in some dismal street which +until that hour had appeared to his prosaic mind a street, and nothing +more. The denizen of Ratcliff Highway sat down amongst his household +gods well pleased with a neighbourhood which, although not +unobjectionable, was a paradise as compared with Coltonslough. + +It was to this place of desolation that a newly-finished offshoot of the +railway then known as the Eastern Counties conveyed Francis Tredethlyn. +He went to look for his cousin with no better clue to help him in his +search than that one word, “Coltonslough,” copied from the post-mark of +Susan’s letter. + +“But I won’t be baffled,” the young man thought, as he sat in the +railway carriage thinking of the task that lay before him. “Coltonslough +may be a big place, but I’ll question every living creature in it before +I’ll give up the chance of finding out something about my cousin.” + +Luckily for Mr. Tredethlyn’s chances, Coltonslough was a very small +place, and after walking backwards and forwards for some quarter of an +hour, before the emporium of the one butcher; the solitary baker, who +dabbled a little in the fruit and confectionery line; and the single +grocer, who was also a linendraper, and beyond that a stationer, who had +a side of bacon hanging on one side of his door, and a piece of showy +cotton stuff upon the other, and who moreover was sole master of the +Coltonslough post-office,--Francis determined upon his plan of action. +He had thought of his cousin very constantly in the few days before his +visit to Mr. Hillary’s mansion; he had thought of her a great deal since +then, though he had not found it quite so easy to concentrate his ideas, +by reason of a certain bright face and slender figure all in a flutter +of white and blue, that would sometimes intrude themselves upon his +meditations. + +Francis knew that his uncle’s daughter had left Tredethlyn Grange with +only a few sovereigns in her pocket, perhaps not much more than enough +to defray her journey to London. Without money, without friends, she had +fled from her home, and had not perished; but had lived to write to her +father from this dismal watering-place of Coltonslough some years after +her flight. It was clear, therefore, that in the interim she must have +either been supported by the benevolence of strangers, or she must have +earned her own living. The last hypothesis was the more likely to be +correct. Susan Tredethlyn had been educated to habits of industry, and +had no doubt confronted the battle of life as fearlessly as any +Tredethlyn should confront any battle. + +“Poor little girl! she went out as a servant, I dare say,” thought the +young man. “She drudged and slaved for some hard mistress, perhaps, +while her father was adding every day to the money that has come to +me--to me--and he refused me a couple of hundred pounds the night my +mother was dying.” + +Mr. Tredethlyn went in at the grocer’s doorway. There was scarcely room +enough for him to pass between the bacon and the cotton stuff, which +some aboriginal of Coltonslough would some day transform into wearing +apparel. The postmaster was chopping some very sallow-hued lump-sugar in +the dusky inner-regions of the shop; but he left off chopping, and +advanced to meet the stranger. + +Francis Tredethlyn was no diplomatist; he was quite unskilled in that +peculiar science known as beating about the bush; so he began to make +inquiries respecting his cousin with as little preface as he would have +employed had he been asking for a pound of sugar. + +“I’m a stranger to this place,” he said, “and I want to ask a few +questions; and I fancy, as you’re postmaster, you must be about the +likeliest person to answer them.” + +The grocer rubbed his hands and smirked, in a manner that was expressive +of a general desire to do anything obliging--of course with an eye to +ultimate profit. + +“A young woman--a relation of mine--left her home four years ago this +month. For nearly three years no one belonging to her could discover +where she was. At the end of that time a letter was received from her, +bearing the post-mark of this place. I want to find out whether she is +still here; or, if not, when she left. I have only just come back from +Van Diemen’s Land, to find things changed in the place that was once my +home. So I’m groping in the dark, you see, and shall be very thankful to +any one that’ll lend me a helping hand.” + +Something in the frankness of his manner, the earnestness of his face, +went straight home to the heart of the Coltonslough postmaster, who +became less a tradesman, and more a man. + +“It’s rather puzzling, you see, in the way you put it,” he said, +scratching his nose meditatively. “You want a young woman who wrote a +letter--or leastways had a letter posted at this place. But, lor’ bless +you, not being under Government y’rself, you see, you’ve no notion of +the dodges they’re up to when they want to throw any one off the scent +like with a post-mark. You mustn’t fancy a person’s in this place or in +that place, because you happen to get a letter from them with such and +such a post-mark. Why, I dessay I could get a letter posted from Jericho +to-morrow morning, if I only gave my mind to it. What might be the name +of the young woman as you’re anxious to find?” + +“Her name is Tredethlyn,” Francis answered, hopelessly; “but as she ran +away from home, and most likely wanted to hide herself from her +relations, she may have changed her name.” + +The postmaster mused for a few moments, and then shook his head gravely. + +“I never heard of no Tredevillings in Coltonslough,” he said. “The young +person was independent in her circumstances, I suppose?” + +“Oh no, indeed! she had very little money when she left home. She must +have worked for her living. I should think it likely that she went out +for a servant; for she was a country-bred girl, and had been used to a +hard life, though her father was a very rich man.” + +A very rich man! That part of the business sounded interesting, and the +grocer pricked up his ears. + +“A country-bred young person,” he repeated, “by the name of +Tredevillane. And what might be the date of the letter with the +Coltonslough post-mark?” + +Francis did not know the exact date. He could only inform the postmaster +that the letter must have reached Cornwall about eighteen months, or it +might be rather less than eighteen months, before the present time. + +“Cornwall!” cried the postmaster; “then the country-bred young woman was +a Cornwall young woman?” + +“Yes, my cousin, Susan Tredethlyn, was a Cornish woman.” + +“A Cornish woman, and by the name of Susan! Why, if you’d put the date +of the letter a good three years back instead of a year and a half, I +should have been able to lay my hand upon y’r cousin there and then, in +a manner of speaking.” + +“How so?” + +“Because I did know a young person that lived with Mrs. Burfield, in +Trafalgar Terrace. But that young person left Coltonslough full three +years ago, and I’ve never set eyes on her since.” + +“But tell me all you know about her!” exclaimed Francis, almost +breathless in his eagerness. “What was she like? Why do you fancy that +she was the girl I’m looking for?” + +“Because, in the first place, she was Cornish. I’d noticed that her talk +was different somehow from that of the folks about here--though she was +as soft-spoken as any lady bred and born; but one day she was standing +in my shop, with the children as she had care of, taking shelter from a +storm--and a regular pelter it was too--and she stood looking out to sea +through yonder half-glass door, which it were shut for the time being, +and I made some remark about the unpleasantness of the weather, out of +politeness like--for the young woman came very often to my shop for +groceries, and with lodgers’ letters,--Mrs. Burfield takes lodgers, and +so forth;--but she looked at me in a kind of absent way, and said ‘Oh, I +like it! I like it!’ ‘You like the storm, Miss?’ I exclaimed; and then +she answered all of a sudden, ‘Yes, I like to see it. This place doesn’t +seem so strange to me to-day as it generally does. I have seen just such +a storm as this from the moor on which my father’s house stands, and I +could almost fancy I was at home in Cornwall.’” + +“And that’s how you found out she was a Cornish woman? I think you’ve +about hit it, Mr. Sanders. I think the girl who talked to you about the +storm must have been my cousin, Susan Tredethlyn.” + +“Her name _was_ Susan,” answered Mr. Sanders; “I’ve heard Mrs. +Burfield’s children call her so in this very shop. She came to +Coltonslough as governess to Mrs. Burfield’s young family.” + +“A governess!” said Francis, with some slight sense of relief. “She was +a governess, then, and not a servant?” + +“Oh dear no! Though Coltonslough being a very small place, you see, sir, +and most of the inhabitants being a good deal dependent upon lodgers, +which gives a kind of fluctuating character to life, as you may say, +sir, a governess in Coltonslough might not be looked upon exactly in the +same light as elsewhere. Or, to put it plainer, sir, a governess in +Coltonslough would _not_ be expected to be proud.” + +“Oh, I understand,” Mr. Tredethlyn answered, rather bitterly. “Yes, my +cousin was a genteel drudge,--not so well paid, perhaps, as vulgar +drudges, and rather harder worked.” + +“The young person was always genteel, sir, even to the extent of wearing +gloves, which is not looked upon as indispensable in Coltonslough; but +in the matter of going errands and opening the door, or carrying in a +lodger’s tea-tray, at a push, she would _not_ be expected to be proud.” + +“And she left three years ago?” + +“She did, sir.” + +The postmaster looked very grave as he said this,--so grave that Francis +Tredethlyn could not fail to perceive that something worse than he had +yet heard remained to be told. He was not a man to diplomatize, nor yet +to make any display of his emotion; but his breath came a little faster +for a few moments, and then he asked abruptly,-- + +“How did she leave?” + +Mr. Sanders hesitated a little, and then said, with some +embarrassment,-- + +“Why, Coltonslough bein’ a gossiping kind of a place, sir, you’re apt to +hear ever so many different versions of the same thing, and it isn’t for +me to say which is right and which is wrong. I think, as it’s a long +story, sir, you’d better hear the rights of it from Mrs. Burfield.” + +“A long story!” repeated Francis Tredethlyn, in an undertone,--“a long +story! Ah, my poor little cousin--my poor ill-used girl! And it seems +only a little while ago when we played together in the churchyard at +Landresdale, in the sunny hour when they let us out of school.” + +It did seem to him but a very little while since he and his cousin had +sat side by side, under one of the big yew-trees in Landresdale +churchyard, dining upon some simple repast of home-made bread and fat +bacon, with a dessert of unripe apples, in the drowsy sultriness of +summer noontide. He sat for some few minutes silently thinking of that +departed time. The memory of it seemed almost like a sharp physical +pain, now that he knew that some great sorrow, some bitter woman’s +trial, had come to his cousin. A story about her--a long story! What +story should gossiping tongues have to tell of any woman, except a +history of suffering and wrong? + +He did not press the postmaster to tell him anything further: but he +said presently, in an altered voice--a voice that had lost something of +its power and ringing vibration,-- + +“I can get to see this Mrs. Burfield, I suppose?” + +“Yes, sir; I make no doubt you can. She is a very genteel person, is +Mrs. Burfield, which she have known better days, and finds herself often +a little drove like with her lodgers. Her house is Number 2, sir, in the +Terrace, Trafalgar Square, fronting sideways, and rather slantin’ like, +to the sea. You can see it, sir, from where you stand.” + +Following the direction of the postmaster’s extended forefinger, Francis +Tredethlyn did see a row of unfinished-looking houses, with the +inevitable seaside bow-windows, staring out of a patch of waste ground. +Why these houses, and almost all the other houses at Coltonslough, +should have slanted away from the sea, obliging their occupants to look +out upon the expanse of waters in a sideways and sinister manner, when +they might have been built directly facing that single feature of +attraction, was a problem far beyond the comprehension of any visitor to +the infantine watering-place. + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + + + + CHAPTER XI. + + A VERY OLD STORY. + + +Mrs. Burfield was a pale-faced and pinched-looking person, +hollow-cheeked and spare of figure, who in these latter days would have +inspired a stranger with the idea that she was a rigid disciplinarian of +the school founded by Mr. Banting. She looked as if all saccharine and +fatty elements had been carefully excluded from her food; and yet, on +the other hand, she had none of the muscular energy which might be +supposed to result from a carnivorous habit. She was a depressing kind +of woman, with thin locks of whity-brown hair dangling upon each side of +her thin face, and thin garments hanging limply upon her scanty figure, +and a thin voice. There was something in Mrs. Burfield’s appearance +which called up vague images of drizzly days, and pattens, and washing +done at home, and a man in the passage clamorous for a water-rate, and +all the most unpleasant associations of poverty. + +She was a woman who prefaced every sentence she uttered with a sigh. She +sighed as she admitted to Mr. Tredethlyn that her name was Burfield, as +if even that fact were in some manner an affliction. She sighed as she +told him, apologetically, that the house was full of lodgers, so she +must ask him to step down into the little sitting-room below stairs. And +yet, as she subsisted by the letting of lodgings, the crowded state of +her house should have been a cause for rejoicing. + +Francis had some slight difficulty in conveying his long legs down the +narrow little staircase, in which there was a breakneck corner, whence +awkward maid-servants were wont to precipitate themselves headlong in +company with an avalanche of tea-things; but he managed to find his way +down somehow or other, and was ushered into a little faded-looking +underground parlour, where all the furniture seemed to have undergone a +prolonged course of Banting, and where the evidence of children’s +habitation was untidily visible in every direction. The children were +all at school, however, Mrs. Burfield told Francis with another sigh; +though, as she added directly afterwards that they drove her next door +to raving madness when they were at home, _that_ fact need scarcely have +depressed her. + +“I had a governess for them some time back,” she said, unconsciously +approaching the subject of Mr. Tredethlyn’s business with her, “and the +young person was very useful to me in many ways; but things have been so +dull, and lodgers so uncertain, and so close as to rent and kitchen +fire, and such like, that I couldn’t afford to engage another young +person, if I could have found anyone as reasonable and as willing as +her, which wasn’t likely.” + +Here Mrs. Burfield sighed again, and to her surprise found herself +echoed by her visitor. + +“It is about that person, the governess, that I have come to inquire,” +said Francis. “I have reason to believe--I may say that I am almost +sure--she is my cousin; very near and very dear to me. Pray tell me all +you can about her. I am a rich man, and I am looking for my cousin, who +has a better claim than I have to the money that has lately come to me. +Pray tell me everything; you shall not find me ungrateful. I will make +it well worth your while to help me in this matter.” + +It might be supposed that Mrs. Burfield, being ground into the very dust +by the iron heel of poverty, would brighten a little on hearing this +promising speech: but she did nothing of the kind; she only sighed +rather more plaintively than usual, and remarked somewhat irrelevantly +that her boys were beginning to grow up now, and the boots they knocked +out, and the way they wore their things at the knees and elbows, were +something awful. + +“Tell me all you can about my cousin,” urged Mr. Tredethlyn. “Ah, you +don’t know how long I have been away from England, and how eager I am to +find that poor desolate girl. Pray tell me all you know, and quickly.” + +“It’s a long story,” said Mrs. Burfield, in the very words used by the +grocer--“it’s a long story, and goodness knows the rights or the wrongs +of it; but if you are her cousin,--and you are, I suppose----” + +“I do not think there can be any doubt of it,” Francis Tredethlyn +answered eagerly; “I do not think there can be any doubt that the person +of whom I have heard this morning was my cousin, Susan Tredethlyn.” + +“The young person to whom _I_ allude called herself Susan Turner.” + +“Yes, yes. It is only natural she should change her name. She left her +home because she had been very much persecuted there. She was no doubt +afraid of being taken back, and was anxious to hide herself under a +false name.” + +“If I had known that she had come to me under a false name, never would +she have slept a night in this house,” exclaimed Mrs. Burfield, with +something between a sigh and a shudder. + +“She was a good and honest girl, under whatever name she came to you,” +answered Francis Tredethlyn; “but pray tell me the story.” + +But Mrs. Burfield could not immediately comply with this request; she +had to go into the kitchen first, to see that “the girl” was basting +some mutton that was being roasted for a very fastidious “front +parlour,” who had a rooted objection to baked meats; and then she had to +go out into a little area, in which the window looked out, and to hold +parley with some person above, who dropped her down divers loaves, and +disputed with her as to a certain “twopenny German” which had been had, +or had not been had, on the previous Tuesday. At last, however, she was +able to seat herself opposite poor Francis, and to begin her story, from +the narration of which she seemed to derive a dismal kind of enjoyment. + +“It’s close upon seven years since my poor dear husband died,” Mrs. +Burfield began; and for some little time Francis Tredethlyn was afraid +that she was going to favour him with a sketch of her own personal +history rather than that story which he was so eager to know. “It’s +close upon seven years, seven years of toil and trouble for me, and up +to that time I’d never known what it was to want for anything in a +moderate way. He was managing clerk in an insurance office, sir, and was +as fine a looking man as you need wish to see; but he was +taken--sudden--and I was left alone to provide for four young children. +Well, sir, I tried one thing and another, but being genteelly brought +up, things seemed to go harder with me than they go with some people; +and at last an uncle, on my mother’s side, who is very wealthy, and +lately retired from the patent chimney-pot business, gave me enough to +buy a little furniture and start fresh down here. It’s been a hard life, +sir, but I shouldn’t have so much minded that if it hadn’t been for the +children. I couldn’t bear to see them running wild upon the shore, or +playing with vulgar, dirty children on the waste ground; so, a little +better than four years ago, I thought I’d try if I couldn’t get a person +to take care of them, who’d be a kind of governess to them, and would +give me a helping hand with the house when my lodgings were full, and +wouldn’t want above a few pounds a year, just to get herself a new gown +once in a way, and so on. Well, sir, I inquired for such a person, but +lor’! you might just as well inquire for anything you wanted on Robinson +Crusoe’s island as at Coltonslough, unless it’s queen’s-taxes and +poor-rates; and you can have plenty of them without asking. So at last +someone says to me--I think it was Mr. Sanders at the post-office--‘Why +don’t you advertise in the “Times,” Mrs. Burfield? it’ll cost you a +trifle, but you are sure to get what you want.’ So the long and the +short of it was, I did advertise for a genteel person who would +undertake to teach young children, and make herself generally useful, in +consideration of a comfortable home and a honorarium of ten pounds per +annum. Mr. Sanders advised me to put it in the light of a honorarium, as +he said it looked more that way. A young person from the country +preferred, I stated in the advertisement; for _the things_ that lodgers +from London bring down with their luggage, and then turn round upon you +and object to the bedding, had quite set me against Londoners. Well, +sir, I got a good many answers, but the best-written letter was signed +Susan Turner. So I wrote to Miss Turner--the address was at a little +coffee-house near the Great Western terminus--and I told her that if she +liked to come down to Coltonslough for an interview, I would be her +expenses one way. Well, she came, and I found her a very +pleasant-spoken, respectable-looking young person, and I took to her at +first sight to that degree that I allowed her to come to me without +reference, she being at variance, as she told me, with her relations in +the country.” + +“She came to you at once, then?” + +“Yes, she stayed with me there and then, not caring to go back to +London, the strangeness of which frightened her, she said; and she had +no luggage, except a little bit of a carpet-bag, full of things, which +she sent for next day; and then by-and-by the truth came out, that she’d +run away from home. But she had a couple of sovereigns, and she went out +and bought herself a few more things, and made herself as neat and +comfortable as she could. She didn’t make much secret of how she’d left +her home, poor girl. Her father had wanted her to marry against her own +wishes, she said, and, in her fear of him, she had run away.” + +“Poor girl! poor girl!” + +“Well, sir,” sighed Mrs. Burfield, “we got on very comfortable for some +months. I never met a young person more kind or more willing. The +children took to her as if she’d been their own sister, and she was +altogether the steadiest, most industrious young person. Things had gone +pretty comfortable with me that season; and in the autumn, quite late, +going on for November, when people don’t expect to see a single lodger +in all Coltonslough, what should I hear, one afternoon, but the wheels +of a fly, and a tremendous double knock at my door; and who should I see +when I opened it, but a tall, handsome-looking gentleman, who walked +straight into my parlour, and took the rooms off-hand, and without so +much as inquiring what the terms would be, which, considering the +haggling and beating down I’d been accustomed to in the very best part +of the season, seemed almost like a dream.” + +Mrs. Burfield had warmed with her subject, and had refrained for some +time from the relief of a sigh; but she paused now to indulge herself in +a very heavy one, and then, after a general disquisition upon the +sorrows of a lodging-house keeper, went on,-- + +“He really was one of the handsomest, easiest-spoken gentlemen I ever +met with, and he seemed to take away one’s breath almost; he had such a +dashing kind of way with him that, if you’d have shut your eyes, you’d +almost have fancied him on horseback, galloping away for dear life. He +seemed all upon the prance, as it were, if I may use the observation. +‘Now I dare say you’ll want references,’ he said, ‘and if so I can’t +jive you any without putting myself to more trouble than I care about. +But you can have some rent in advance if that’ll do; and I’ve no end of +luggage, if that’ll do.’ And then he flung himself into one of the +arm-chairs, and burst out laughing when it creaked and groaned, as it +were, under him; for lodgers have no more feeling for an unprotected +female’s furniture than if they was so many Ojibbeway Indians--and I +can’t deny that the parlour chairs were uncertain. But I didn’t mind the +strange gentleman making game of them, somehow, for he had such a +pleasant way with him, and showed his white teeth, and looked so +handsome, that he seemed quite to brighten up the place. + +“‘Well,’ he said presently, ‘can you guess why I came to Coltonslough in +the month of November?’ And of course I told him no, I couldn’t, not +having the pleasure of being acquainted with him. Upon which he burst +out laughing, again. ‘I came here,’ he said, ‘because I was told +Coltonslough was about the dullest place upon the surface of the earth; +and I mean to stay here till after Christmas. So you may tell the man +outside to bring in my luggage, and look sharp about it.’ Upon which the +flyman brought in a couple of big portmanteaus, and a gun-case, and a +hat-box, and two of the heaviest trunks that ever came into my passage. +‘Books, ma’am, books, every one of them, and all as heavy as lead,’ said +the young gentleman, as the corners of the boxes went scratching and +bumping upon the paper,--and the way lodgers’ boxes do scratch and bump +an unprotected female’s paper is something awful. But for all that I +wasn’t sorry to see plenty of luggage, though the books might have been +brickbats neatly packed in hay, as has been known to happen in this very +terrace. ‘Well, ma’am,’ says the gentleman, when his luggage had all +been brought in and the flyman paid, ‘now I can settle down comfortably. +Do I look as if I’d been plucked, do you think, ma’am?’ he asked, +looking at me very hard, and sticking his hands deep down in his +pockets, which was one of those ways of his that I venture to call +prancing. I didn’t quite catch his meaning, but I thought he alluded to +something unpleasant; so I said, ‘No, indeed, I should think not.’ ‘But +I have, ma’am,’ he answered, looking at me in a measuring sort of way, +as if I’d been a five-barred gate, and he was just going to fly clean +over me; and that measuring look of his was another of his galloping +ways. ‘But I _have_ been plucked, ma’am,’ he said, ‘as clean as any fowl +that they ever send you home from the poulterer’s. I’m a featherless +biped, ma’am. So I’ve come down to Coltonslough, being, as I understand, +the dullest hole upon the earth’s crust, and I mean to go in a +perisher.’ A ‘perisher’ was his expression. ‘And I mean to read like old +boots; so you may let your servant light me a fire, ma’am, and get me +some chops; for I suppose I must resign myself to an existence sustained +upon chops so long as I’m at Coltonslough.’” + +Once more Mrs. Burfield stopped to take breath. Francis Tredethlyn +listened in silence, with a moody frown upon his face. Already he hated +this man, of whose share in his cousin’s history he was yet ignorant. He +felt as we feel sometimes at a play, when we see the villain first +appear upon the stage, and know he is a villain, yet do not know what +his special crime is to be. + +“Well, sir, of all the pleasant lodgers that ever darkened a widow’s +door, the plucked young gentleman was the pleasantest. He got up early, +and went to his books and papers as soon as he was dressed, and had +chops and strong green tea for breakfast; and he sat at his books all +day, till it was too dark for him to sit any longer, and then he went +and strolled up and down the Esplanade, smoking for an hour or so; and +then he came in and had more chops and cold brandy-and-water for his +dinner, except when I took the liberty of roasting him a fowl, or +getting some other little nicety, just by way of variety; and then, +after dinner, he went to his books and papers again, and sat up till +very late, reading and writing and drinking strong green tea.” + +“But my cousin Susan,” cried Francis. He was getting impatient under +this minute description of the lodger’s habits. “What has all this to do +with my cousin?” + +“I’m coming to that,” Mrs. Burfield answered, with a sigh that was more +profound than usual. “You see, sir, it happened at this time, being the +end of the season, and Coltonslough as empty as it could be; it happened +that we were without a servant; so myself and Susan Turner took it in +turns to wait upon the young gentleman. Not that I ever asked her to do +anything that you can call menial; but she’d take him up his tea, and +clear away his dinner things, and light his candles for him, and such +like; and knowing her to be a respectable young woman, I didn’t keep +that sharp watch over her that some folks might have done. If she +stopped ten minutes or so in his room, talking to him, I usen’t to think +anything about it--you can hear almost every sound in these houses, and +it was quite pleasant to hear her soft voice and his laugh ringing out +every now and then. He wasn’t the sort of gentleman you could suspect of +any harm, he had such a happy kind of way with him, as if he was good +friends with himself and all the world. He lent Susan books--books of +poetry, with all sorts of pencil-writing upon the edges of them; and I +used sometimes to fancy Susan cared more for the pencil-writing than she +did for the poetry itself; she’d sit and pore over it so when the +children were gone to bed and we were alone in this room. Sometimes the +plucked young gentleman would come down here of an evening to fetch +himself another candle, or to tell us that he’d let his fire out, or +something of that kind; for he wasn’t a bit proud; and then, instead of +going back directly, he’d sit down and make himself as much at home as +if he had lived among us all his life; and Oh, dear me, sir, how he +would talk!--all about books and poetry, and the foreign places he’d +seen, and plays, and music, and writers, and actors, and singers. He +seemed to know everything in the world. So, you see, one way and +another, he saw a good deal of Susan; for I found out afterwards from +the children that when he went out in the dusk to smoke his cigar he +generally contrived to meet Susan, and then he’d walk with her and the +children till it was time for them to go indoors. She was a good girl, +and she wasn’t the girl to throw herself in his way. If they were much +together, it was because he followed her. I might have known the meaning +of his sitting in this room for hours together of a night; but he had +such a natural way of doing everything that it threw one off one’s +guard, somehow.” + +“The scoundrel!” muttered Francis Tredethlyn, between his clenched +teeth. “But you haven’t told me his name. I want to know his name.” + +“He’d been with us more than a fortnight before ever I asked him what +his name was, and then somehow or other the question came up, and he +said his name was Lesley--Robert Lesley; but somehow, looking back upon +it afterwards, it seemed to me as if he hesitated a little before he +said the name. Well, things went on as comfortable as possible for more +than two months, and then he went away, taking all his luggage with him, +and paying me very liberal for everything he’d had, besides half-a-crown +apiece to the children, which at that time of year came very welcome; +and of course I took it from them immediately to go towards their new +boots. He went away; and as I thought, somehow, he’d had a kind of a +liking for Susan, and Susan for him, I half expected the poor girl would +fret a little when he was gone; but she didn’t, and looking at her +sometimes as she sat at work opposite to me, I used to fancy there was a +kind of happy smile like upon her face. She’d been with me six months by +this time, and I paid her the little trifle that was due; and what did +she do next day but go out and spend ever so much in toys and such-like +for the children, which, as I told her, was very wrong, considering how +badly off she was for clothes. But she made no answer, except to look at +me with the same smile I’d seen so often on her face since Mr. Lesley +had gone.” + +“Poor girl--poor, helpless, innocent girl!” + +The dark frown melted into a softer expression as Francis Tredethlyn +muttered these few broken words. He was no longer thinking of the +stranger--the nameless villain of this common story. He was thinking of +his cousin Susy’s innocent face, with the smile of girlish trustfulness +upon it. + +“One day, when Mr. Lesley had been gone a little better than three +weeks, a letter came for Susan--I’d need to notice it, for it was the +first she’d had since she’d been with me. She ran upstairs directly she +heard the postman’s knock, and took the letter from him with her own +hands, and stopped to read it in the passage. She was putting it in her +pocket as she came back into this room, and her cheeks were flushed as +bright as two red roses; but she didn’t say a word about the letter. All +that afternoon she seemed in a kind of flutter, and every now and then +she would come all over in a tremble, and drop her work in her lap. She +was making some pinafores for the boys, and I said to her, ‘Susan, what +ever is the matter?’ but she turned it off somehow, and nothing more was +said until after tea, when the children were safe out of the way, and we +were sitting alone together. Then I never did see anybody so restless as +she was, laying her work down and taking it up again, and fetching a +book--one of the books he’d left with her,--and opening and shutting it, +and then pretending to read, but all in the same restless way; till at +last she came suddenly behind my chair, and flung her arms round my +neck, and began to sob fit to break her poor loving heart. And it was +ever so long before she could get calm enough to say anything; but at +last she cried out, ‘Oh, Mrs. Burfield, I’m afraid I’m very ungrateful; +you’ve been so good to me, and we’ve been so happy together.’ And so we +had; though I do think, poor tender-hearted dear, she’d gone through as +much on account of the taxes as if she’d been the householder instead of +me. ‘I’m going to leave you, Mrs. Burfield,’ she said; ‘I’m going to +leave you, and the children that love me so dearly. I’m going away to be +married to Mr. Lesley. I’m to go by the first train to-morrow morning, +and he’s to meet me at the station, and at eleven o’clock we’re to be +married.’ + +“You may guess how she took my breath away when she told me this. But I +said, ‘Oh, my dear, you can’t mean to do anything so mad as go alone to +meet Mr. Lesley, which is little better than a stranger to you?’ ‘A +stranger!’ she cried out, ‘my darling Robert a stranger! Oh, if you only +knew how noble he is, and how much he is going to give up to marry a +poor girl like me!’ And then she went on about him as if he’d been +something better than a human creature; and having always found him so +much the gentleman myself, and so open-hearted and frank in all his +ways, I could scarcely do otherwise than believe her. But still I urged +her all I could against trusting him. ‘Don’t go, my dear,’ I said; ‘or, +if you must go, let me go with you.’ But she blushed very red, and said, +‘Oh, Mrs. Burfield, the marriage is to be a secret, and I promised +Robert again and again that I wouldn’t say a word about it to you or any +living creature. Only you’ve been so good to me, and I couldn’t bear to +go away without telling you the whole truth.’ And upon this I begged her +still harder not to go away; I told her no good ever came out of secret +marriages, and that there was generally something underhand and false at +the bottom of them, that brought about all kinds of trouble and +suffering afterwards. And I told her how my Burfield married me publicly +in St. Pancras’ Church, and would have his two sisters--one in pink and +one in blue--besides the Miss Parkinses, his first cousins, who were +sweetly dressed in green and salmon, to walk after me to the altar. But +it was no more use talking to Susan than if she’d been a stone statue, +though she sat herself on the little hassock at my feet, and kept crying +one minute and smiling the next, and talking about her darling Robert, +and kissing me, till I almost thought her brain was turned. It was no +use talking. ‘I love him so dearly,’ she said, ‘and I know how noble and +generous he is.’ And that was her only argument; and long before +daylight the next morning she went away by the early train; and though +my heart seemed bleeding for her, I couldn’t kiss her when she said +good-bye, and I couldn’t go to the station to see her off. ‘No, Susan,’ +I said, ‘if you must go, you must, and I’ve no power to keep you back; +but I’ll be neither act nor part in your going.’ But I stood at my +window to see her go away, and I shall never forget the dark, drizzly +morning, with streaks of gray like on one side of the sky, and white +sickly-looking stars on the other, and Susan walking across the waste +ground all alone, with the rain driving at her, and the wind beating at +her, and a bit of a shabby carpet-bag in her hand. It seemed so dreadful +to think she was going to be married like that.” + +“But she _did_ go away?” cried Francis. “She must have come back to you, +then; for the letter with the Coltonslough post-mark reached her father +less than eighteen months ago.” + +“I’m coming to that,” answered Mrs. Burfield. “It’s about eighteen +months ago that she came back to me, looking, Oh! so changed, so broken +down, that I hadn’t the heart to ask her any questions. I could see that +all had gone wrong, and I could guess pretty well what kind of wrong it +was. She never mentioned Mr. Lesley’s name; and there was something in +her face that seemed to make me afraid to mention it myself. She wanted +to lodge with me, she said, and would pay me for her lodgings. I could +see that she wore a wedding-ring on her finger, but she had no other +jewellery whatever. She was dressed in black,--black silk that had once +been very handsome, but which was rusty and shabby then. The first night +she came to me she sat up very late writing, and in the morning she went +out with a letter in her hand. She was with me more than two months; but +that was the last time I ever saw her write. She used to be fond of +reading; but now she never took up a book, though Mr. Lesley had left a +good many of his books in the little chiffonier in the parlour, thinking +to come back, as he told me. She used to be fond of the children; but +now she never noticed them, and after a little while they seemed to +shrink away from her, as if she was strange to them somehow. For hours +and days together she used to sit in the bow-window, watching the road +from the station, as if she expected some one. At dusk she would go out +and walk upon the Esplanade, just at the time that he used to walk with +his cigar. It was the dull season, and there was no one to notice her. +At last, about the middle of May, when the visitors began to come to +Coltonslough, she told me one day that she must leave me. I said, ‘Was +it on account of the lodgings?’ because she knew I used to raise the +rent at that time of year, and I thought that might be the cause of her +wanting to go. But she said, ‘Oh! no, no.’ She had only had one purpose +in stopping so long, and that was in the hope of seeing some one, or +getting an answer to a letter she had written; and now there was no +longer any hope of that. So I couldn’t persuade her to stay any longer, +do what I would, and she went away. She had friends in London, she told +me, who had promised to put her in the way of getting her own living +somehow or other. I kissed her this time, willing enough, poor child, +and I went with her to the station; and I thought her pale face looked +almost like a ghost’s as she waved her hand to me from the carriage +window.” + +“You’re a good woman!” cried Mr. Tredethlyn, half crushing Mrs. +Burfield’s skinny hands in his strong fingers,--“you’re a good woman, +and you did your best to befriend that poor girl.” + +Mrs. Burfield sighed, and wiped her eyes with the corner of a rusty +black-silk apron. The world had been very hard for her; but there was a +gentle, womanly haven somewhere in her breast, and Susan Tredethlyn had +taken shelter there. + +“She’d been gone a little over six weeks, when an old gentleman came one +morning, and asked to see a girl called Susan. That’s how he put it. He +was very stern looking, and he threw me all in a tremble, somehow, with +his ways; but I asked him down here, and then, little by little, he made +me tell him pretty nearly all I’ve told you. I couldn’t keep anything +back from him; he put his questions so fierce and sudden; and every time +I hesitated ever so little, he accused me of prevaricating with him, and +trying to deceive him. I could see his eyes glaring at me like coals of +fire, and his face turned of a bluish white, so that I was almost +frightened he’d drop down in a fit. But when he’d got all the story out +of me, he stood up as straight and stern as if he’d been only twenty +years old, and said, ‘No man of my name ever knew what disgrace was +until to-day; and may the heaviest curse that ever fell upon a woman’s +head come down upon my shameful daughter!’ He stretched up his two +hands,--and I shall never forget him as he stood there with his white +hair, and the bluish white of his face, and the dreadful glare in his +eyes. Then he put on his hat and walked out of the house, taking no more +notice of me than if I’d been a stock or a stone. I heard the front door +bang to after him; and I ran upstairs to the parlour window, and saw him +walking away towards the station; and that’s the last I saw of him.” + +“Can you remember upon what day this occurred?” + +“Yes, I can; for I’d had the parlour lodgers leave me the day before. It +was the 29th of June.” + +The 29th of June! and on the 30th Oliver Tredethlyn had executed that +will which made Francis master of thirty thousand a year. The young man +knew now why his uncle had left him a great fortune, and found it still +more difficult to feel very grateful to his benefactor. + +There was a long pause, during which vengeful thoughts had their full +way in the breast of Francis Tredethlyn. + +“Can you tell me nothing more of this man,” he said presently,--“this +scoundrel, who called himself Robert Lesley?” + +Mrs. Burfield only answered by a hopeless shake of her head. + +“He left some books, you say. Was there none among them that would give +any clue to who or what he was?” + +Again Mrs. Burfield shook her head. + +“You’re welcome to look at the books,” she said; “there’s plenty of +pencil-writing in them, but no name or address,--only initials.” + +She knelt down before a little chiffonier in a corner by the fireplace, +and took out a few volumes, some handsomely, some shabbily bound, and +placed them before Francis Tredethlyn. + +Upon the handsomely-bound books the initials “R. L.” appeared in a +gilded monogram. Four of the volumes were German translations of some +recondite classics; but there was a fifth upon which Mr. Tredethlyn +fastened eagerly. It was a small flat volume, bound in sheepskin, and +fastened with a brass lock--a very superior kind of lock. On the cover +was written the one word “Journal.” + +“Let me have this book,” he said; “I’ll give you a hundred pounds for +it.” + +Mrs. Burfield’s mouth opened with a spasmodic action, and for once in +her life she forgot to sigh. + +“A hundred pounds!” + +“A hundred--two, if you like. Haven’t I told you that I’m a rich man? +and you’ve been kind to my cousin. I’ll give you the money as a free +gift, for the matter of that; but I must have this book. It’s a +journal--a book in which a man writes a history of his own life. An +officer I knew in Van Diemen’s Land used to write such a history by fits +and starts. How do I know what this may tell me about my cousin? Let me +have it. I know the book isn’t yours; but there can be no such thing as +honour or faith to be kept with a man like that. Let me have the book.” + +There was a good deal more said upon the matter; but the end of it was +that Francis Tredethlyn went back to London with the sheepskin-covered +volume in his pocket; and Mrs. Burfield, retiring to rest after a heavy +supper of cold meat and cucumber, dreamt that she had inherited a +million of money from one of the Coltonslough tax-collectors. + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + + + + CHAPTER XII. + + A MODERN GENTLEMAN’S DIARY. + + +Francis Tredethlyn went back to the hotel in Covent Garden with the +little sheepskin-covered volume appertaining to the gentleman who called +himself Robert Lesley, safely stowed in his pocket. He went straight +back to the hotel, ate his simple dinner, drew the candles near him, and +then, taking up a poker from the hearth, made short work of the lock +under which the stranger had kept his secrets. All thought of those +sunny gardens and drawing-rooms at Twickenham, the glancing river, the +woody background, faded out of his mind for a time, and gave place to +one settled purpose--the discovery of his missing cousin’s destroyer. + +Yes, her destroyer! He had only been able to read Mrs. Burfield’s story +in one fashion. The solitary departure in the chill light of a winter’s +morning, the haste and secrecy, the lonely return long afterwards; these +things seemed to the young man to point only to one conclusion;--the +simple Cornish girl’s faith had been betrayed by the man she had so +implicitly trusted. + +In the little volume before him Francis Tredethlyn hoped to find some +further clue to that sad history. He seemed to take a savage pleasure in +punishing the neat brazen lock, which he shattered with a couple of +vigorous blows from the handle of the poker. + +“I wonder whether, when a man’s a villain, he writes _that_ down?” +thought Mr. Tredethlyn. “I can’t fancy a scoundrel putting the truth +about himself even on paper; and if the truth isn’t here, I can’t see +how the book will help me. And yet there must be secrets in it, too, or +he’d never have had such a lock as this. Mr. Lowther used to throw his +journal about any where, and I don’t think _he_ ever did anything that +was particularly worth writing down.” + +The Cornishman began to turn over the volume very slowly, looking at the +pages cautiously, almost as if he expected to see some venomous creature +crawl out from between the leaves. The first twenty pages of the book +were filled with the records of a college life, in which brief memoranda +of study were interspersed with boating slang and turf calculations. The +name of a certain Rosa, of the King’s Head, appeared very often in these +earlier pages; and there were little epigrams about Rosa, bespeaking the +easy-going morality of a Rochester or a Sedley, rather than the pure +sentiments of a Tennyson or a Longfellow. Altogether there was a +reckless, swaggering manner about the book, which very well corresponded +with Mrs. Burfield’s description of the prancing stranger. + +But the volume had no interest for Francis Tredethlyn until he came to +the twentieth page, where the name of Coltonslough figured for the first +time. + +“_November 8._--The abomination of desolation, and just the place for a +fellow that wants to read hard and be delivered from the society of his +fellow-creatures! Arrived yesterday afternoon; found civil landlady, +stereotyped sea-side accommodation; decrepit easy-chair, slippery +horsehair cushions; no window-curtains to speak of, and a great deal of +unnecessary drapery festooned about a rickety tent-bedstead; +wash-hand-stand one size too large for a doll, and fifty sizes too small +for any civilized being; shells and shepherdesses on the mantelpieces, +and any amount of blown-glass decanters on the sideboard. Dined on +chops, which were fried, soddened in their own grease. Must speak to the +landlady to-morrow, and insist on gridiron. The woman who would fry +chops would think nothing of human sacrifices. A girl waited upon me, a +good deal younger than Rosa, and I think prettier--but we have changed +all that, so I didn’t take particular notice of her. Read hard till +after one, and write this before retiring to my couch,--flock, and +lumpy, for I dug my knuckles into the counterpane while examining the +apartment. + +“_November 9._--The girl, who is infinitely superior to Rosa, brought me +my breakfast. More chops, not fried, but soddened in relic of the dark +ages entitled Dutch oven, for I inquired; and underdone French rolls. +Why, O provincial taker, always underdone? What grudge dost thou bear +against thy fellow-man that thou seekest insidiously to undermine his +constitution with thy clammy bread-stuffs? Girl, infinitely prettier +than Rosa, cleared away breakfast. Very shy, and only answers polite +inquiries in monosyllables. Asked if she was relation of woman of house. +No, no relation; nursery governess to children. Comes from some remote +district in the west of England; evidently objects to be precise as to +locality. Heard her go down kitchen stairs with tea-things, and did +_not_ hear her reascend them. Conclude that the nursery is somewhere in +the cellarage. Read hard all day. Smoke and stroll in the evening. +Landlady waited on me at dinner. Dismal change, after monosyllabic girl, +recalling Death’s-head at Egyptian banquets, but _not_ crowned with +flowers. More reading after dinner, brandy-and-water cold, and now to +bed. Have ordered mattress to be put over flock. Sleeping on knobby +surface all very well now and then, but not for a permanence. Mem: To +keep my eye upon Lord Paisley’s ‘Blazing Tom,’ for the Craven meeting. + +“_November 12._--No diary yesterday or the day before. Read with German +crib: wonderful fellows those Germans for first-class translations of +classic fogies. Wrote to H. C. to put a pony on ‘Blazing Tom.’ Walked on +the Esplanade in the afternoon, and made the acquaintance of +monosyllabic Cornish girl, infinitely prettier than Rosa. Yes, I +succeeded in breaking the ice, with considerable trouble; for I never +_did_ see anything feminine so shy and frightened as this brown-eyed +Cornish girl. ‘Her eye’s dark charm,’ &c. Well, there _is_ something of +the gazelle in her eyes, something shrinking and fawn-like. I could +fancy the white doe of what’s-its-name looking as she looked at me +yesterday. + +“I went out for my smoke and stroll rather earlier than I had intended. +I saw the Cornish girl and three uncouth children in rusty leather boots +wending their way across the piece of waste ground which forms the +delicious prospect before my window. A nice, cool, gray afternoon, with +a low yellow streak on the western horizon; a gray sea, melting into a +gray sky, with only just that one golden streak glimmering along the +edge of the waters; the sort of afternoon that reminds one of Tennyson’s +poetry. So I lighted my cigar, and went out for a stroll. Perhaps I +followed the monosyllabic girl. What do I know? as that amiable French +nuisance, who is perpetually quoted in newspaper leaders, remarked. +Enough that I went, found the Cornish girl, very shabbily dressed, but +unutterably pretty, strolling listlessly up and down the paved walk +beside the sea. They _call_ it the sea; but, Oh for the roaring breakers +of the Atlantic, or the long hoarse roar of the waves as the German +Ocean surges on broad yellow sands yonder, far away in the North! + +“And so, having lighted my cigar, I strolled up and down the Esplanade. +Of course I began to talk to the children. If children have any use in +this world--which I have been frequently inclined to doubt--surely it +must be in this matter of serving as a means of introduction to pretty +nursemaids. The children and I were intimate in no time; the presuming +little imps became, of course, obnoxiously familiar; and, like all +go-betweens, were very difficult to shake off when done with. But I got +the Cornish girl to talk at last. She is not stupid, only shy; and she +told me a good deal, in a pretty, simple, girlish way, about her native +county, always keeping clear of all precise allusion to locality, by the +bye. She is very pretty,--I had almost written lovely, but that +adjective can only be applied to a high-bred beauty. She is extremely +pretty, and that white doe of Rhylston (isn’t it?) look in her eyes +haunted me all last night while I was reading. Yes, it was very +pleasant, that stroll upon the Esplanade. I threw away my first cigar, +and forgot to light another, though she would have allowed me to smoke, +I dare say. It was very pleasant, that cool gray sea, and the yellow +streak fading in the west, and the flat gray shore, and the generally +Tennysonian aspect of everything. It was very much better than the +King’s Arms, and a lot of fellows drinking no end of Bass, and chaffing +Rosa. I don’t suppose this Cornish girl knows what chaff means. I almost +shudder when I think of Rosa, with her big, round, black eyes, and the +sticky little curls upon her forehead, and the tartan neck-ribbons, and +great yellow earrings. And Oxonians have married Rosas before my time, +and have deservedly gone to the dogs thereupon. But fifty thousand is +your figure, my dear Robert,--fifty thousand, well sounded, and no +separate-use-and-maintenance humbug either. Something in the +commercial-widow line, I suppose you will have to put up with, my poor +Bob; but no greedy old parent to interfere with the disposal of the +money. The widow, or the orphan, if a fifty thousand pounder, is the +sort of article for you, dear child. + +“_November 13._--She brought me my breakfast this morning--(what, is she +_she_ already? Alas, poor Rosa!)--and I got her to pour out my tea. I +couldn’t detain her long: she was so _very_ busy, she said, and seemed +painfully anxious to get away. I made her talk a little. She has a nice +low voice,--‘an excellent thing,’ &c.! Now Rosa had a vixenish way of +speaking, that always jarred upon me, even when I was deepest down that +pit into which the fair barmaid’s admirers cast themselves. She--the +Cornish girl--is what people call a genteel young person, with white +hands and a slim waist, and a nice way of doing her hair, and putting on +her collars and cuffs. Her name is Susan Turner, by the bye; and the +children call her Susy. Could anything sound more pastoral? Susy. The +name of Rosa was always so painfully suggestive of nigger melodies. +Another cool gray afternoon, and another low yellow line across the sky; +so I went out for my smoke at the same time as yesterday. She was on the +Esplanade with the children. She instructs them in arithmetic, writing, +and elementary smatterings of history, geography, and grammar, after +dinner, and then brings them out for a walk till tea-time, after which +they ‘retire to rest,’ as the novelists have it, not without +considerable rebellious scuffling in the passage and on the stairs. That +is the order of the day. In the morning, I suspect, she is housemaid, +parlour-maid, needlewoman, or anything else that my landlady’s +necessities oblige her to be. But she is always equally neat and pretty; +and if she were only provided with that trifling little matter of fifty +thousand or so in the elegant simplicity of the three per cents, I +should be decidedly inclined to fall in love with her. Does one ever +fall in love with a fifty-thousand pounder, by the bye? I rather think +not. She--Susy--was not quite so shy this afternoon, and we talked a +good deal. I offered to lend her some books. I offered to lend Rosa +books once, when I was in the lowest depths of spooneyism, and was +unhappy about her grammar--those dreadful superfluous ‘whiches,’ and +intolerable ‘as hows’!--but Rosa rejected my literature, as dry rubbish +that gave her the horrors. I had lent her the ‘Bride of Lammermoor.’ My +little Susy won’t turn up that innocent nose of hers at any sentimental +story, I’ll be bound. I’ve found an odd volume of Byron, containing +‘Parisina,’ and the ‘Prisoner of Chillon,’ and a lot of the ‘To Thirza’ +business. + +“N.B.--I find that I’ve called her my little Susy! Pretty well, as I’ve +been only a week in the place. Am I going down into another pit, I +wonder--a deeper abyss than that into which Rosa casts her victims? +Poor, pretty, fawn-eyed little darling! Take care of yourself, my dear +Robert. Poor, friendless Susy! She couldn’t well be _worse off_ under +any circumstances than she is in this place, that’s one blessing: the +drudge of a mistress who is herself a slave in the bondage of poverty. I +went down to the kitchen yesterday to get a fresh supply of coals--these +people are ready to fall down and worship me because I’m not proud, as +they put it; but there are numerous orders of pride, I think,--and I saw +their dinner. Such a poor bone of mutton! Poor little Susy! how she +would open her eyes at sight of the Richmond and Greenwich banquets that +I have seen given to persons as inferior to herself as--Hyperion to the +other person. What a frightful hindrance to original composition is that +abominable habit of hackneyed quotation!--the great newspaper-mill going +round three-hundred-and-thirteen times a year, and only one little +limited stock of quotations for all the leader-writers. + +“_November 16._--Sunday, and a wet day: saw Susan start for church in +the morning with prayer-books and children. Strolled out with umbrella a +little after twelve; found church; unpleasant new building, smelling of +damp stucco, and looking like an edifice of soddened brown paper; waited +in the porch, patient as that young idiot in Arthur Pendennis’s poem, +until my lady came out, and conducted her home in triumph under my +umbrella, while the awkward squad of children brought up the rear under +cover of the maternal gingham. She was obliged to take my arm; and as +the walk from the church is rather a long one, we got alarmingly +intimate--when I say alarmingly intimate, I mean that she has taken to +blushing when I speak to her. That’s the worst of these fawn-like girls; +they will blush! And when they’re pretty, the blushes are so bewitching. +And when they don’t happen to have fifty thousand or so, what is a +fellow to do? Take to his heels, replies the stern moralist, who has +sown his own wild oats twenty years ago, and is envious of the young +scatterers of to-day. I came to Coltonslough to read; and come what may, +I shall stay there till it’s time to go back to St. B. In the meantime, +Susan is a brown-eyed angel--an angel who leads the life of a low-bred +drudge, and for whom any possible change of circumstances _must_ be a +change for the better. + +“Of course I questioned her about the sermon as we walked home. Take an +interest in sermons, and women will believe in you, though you were the +veriest scoundrel that ever admired Voltaire and considered the +‘Pucelle’ his _chef-d’œuvre_. What a little Puritan she is! She has been +to church twice every Sunday ever since she can remember, she told me, +and to Sunday-school, and to all kinds of examinations and +cross-examinations in the vicar’s parlour. I don’t suppose _she_ would +have floundered as I did, and come to grief over some of the questions +those old fogies at Oxford asked me about Biblical history. She knows +all about Saul, and David, and Jonathan, and those everlasting wars with +the Philistines, I dare say. She is very pretty, lovely--yes, lovely, +though _not_ high-bred. I sometimes fancy, though, that she must have +decent blood in her veins. I never saw a prettier little hand upon my +arm than that which rested there to-day, as I brought her home from +church. If I were--something utterly different from what I am, I would +get my degree, go in for a country curacy, and little Susy should be my +wife. But _noblesse oblige_: which very elastic aphorism means, in my +case, that I must marry a rich woman, and hold my own in my native +county whenever the reigning potentate is polite enough to retire to the +dusky shades whither all earthly sovereigns must go. + +“Poor little Susan! pretty little Susan! When I am a county magnate, +laying down the law at the head of my table in the great dining-room at +the hall, shall I look back and think of these days, and smile at +myself, remembering that I could be so foolish as to go out on a wet +Sunday to escort a little nursemaid along a damp clay road? + +“Read hard all the afternoon: dined on an elderly fowl flavoured with +Dutch oven--a bird that must have known Coltonslough when the first +bow-windowed house was a damp brickwork skeleton, grim and open to the +howling of the winds. Read for some time after dinner, and let my fire +out. Went downstairs to hunt up matches and firewood, and found my +landlady and Susan sitting opposite to each other at a little table with +one tallow-candle, reading pious compositions of an evangelical +tendency. They both seemed glad to see me; so I stopped and talked to +them. Susan had read the ‘Prisoner of Chillon;’ she read it last night, +and cried over it ‘fearful,’ my landlady informed me; so we were able to +talk about the poem, and I read two or three of the fugitive pieces +aloud. I used to be rather great at the debating-club at O., and I gave +them the ‘Thyrzas’ and ‘Day of my Destinys’ very strong. I could see the +tears shining in Susan’s eyes before I’d finished. I used to recite +poetry to Rosa sometimes, when I’d been taking too much Bass, and we +stood in the moonlit porch at the King’s Arms, with the river, and the +willows, and the towing-path all of a shimmer in the silvery light; but +one is apt to get tired of reciting sentimental poetry to a young person +who cries, ‘Lor’, how funny!’ at the close of some passionate verse. I +remember thundering out that grand anathema of Tom Moore’s against the +Prince Regent, ‘Go, deceiver, go!’ and my Rosa asked me naïvely what the +gentleman had done that the other gentleman should use such bad language +to him. No, Rosa, your strong point was not intellect. In the matter of +sticky curls and large black eyes you are unsurpassed, but the +sentimental element in your nature may be represented by zero. + +“_November 30th._--More blanks in my journal. I said we were growing +alarmingly intimate; such an intimacy is alarming to a fellow who came +to Coltonslough bent on devoting himself to Aristotle and Aristophanes, +Æschylus and Euripides, and all that sort of people. Have been reading +‘The Clouds’ all this morning, but found a strange undercurrent of Susan +Turner pervading that classic satire; and I mean to go in and win this +time: those fellows at St. Boniface sha’n’t be able to laugh at my +discomfiture a second time. Why were women created for the trouble and +confusion of the superior sex? I thought I should be so safe at +Coltonslough, remote from Rosa, the Delilah of my youth; and lo! here is +another Delilah, a thousand times more dangerous--a shy, brown-eyed +Omphale, for whose sake any intellectual Hercules on this earth would +meekly hold the distaff. She is _so_ pretty; and all those modest, +shrinking ways have such an unspeakable fascination after a long course +of Rosa’s sharp repartees, all redolent of the bar and the beer-engines. +I can never dissociate Rosa from the smell of malt liquors and ardent +spirits, with just a faint suspicion of lemons and stale pork-pie. But +there must be something extraordinary about _this_ girl, for her vulgar +surroundings do not seem to vulgarize her. I don’t mean that she is one +of nature’s duchesses, or any humbug of that sort. I have no belief in +nature’s nobility, and to my mind a duchess is a person who has been +cradled in Belgravia, whose long-clothes were flounced with _point +d’Alençon_, and to whom the wrong side of Temple Bar would be as strange +as the centre of Africa. I should by no means care to see my little Susy +in a London drawing-room; but I can fancy her domiciled in some rustic +cottage in the lake district, a patient Wordsworthian little handmaiden, +waiting upon and worshipping her husband, and getting him cosy +breakfasts, with silvery trout broiled to perfection, and mushrooms +newly-gathered from the neighbouring plains. If I were only an embryo +curate, with neither expectations nor ambitious desires, I scarcely +think that I could find a better wife than this simple gazelle-eyed +maiden; but---- Oh, that terrible monosyllable! The history of all the +world seems made up of buts and ifs. + +“My afternoon stroll upon the Esplanade has grown into an established +thing. Sixpence judiciously bestowed upon the children despatches those +young abominations scurrying over the waste ground to an emporium which +they call ‘the shop,’ whence they return after an interval, embrowned +and sticky with the traces of ginger-bread and barley-sugar. In the +meanwhile Susan and I are alone on that dreary Esplanade. What is it +Byron says about youth, and solitude, and the sea? Well, that sort of +thing _is_ rather a dangerous combination; and I begin to think that if +I want to redeem my character at St. B., I shall be obliged to take +myself and my books away from Coltonslough. ‘Breathes there the wretch +with soul so dead,’ who could sit in that dingy parlour, coaching +himself in the classics, while one of the prettiest girls in all the +British dominions is walking up and down the Esplanade opposite his +window, and thinking of him? Yes, she thinks of me, and expects me, when +that yellow streak begins to glimmer in the west. I have seen her head +turned towards my window; and then I pitch my friend Sophocles into the +remotest corner, and go out for my afternoon stroll. + +“_December 10._--Yes, the dismal confession must be written, or the +account between R. L. and self closed for ever. I am in love--seriously, +desperately, unreasonably in love--with a young person whose social +status is something between that of a parlour-maid and a +nursery-governess. Could she be worse off than she is now? Could any +turn in the wheel of fortune leave her in a lower place than that she +now occupies? Scarcely! I don’t believe in those dismal histories which +the Minerva Press was wont to disseminate. Susan is just the sort of +girl to fall on her feet. Those shy, sensitive creatures always know how +to take care of themselves, and often do remarkably well in life. It’s +your dashing, high-spirited, strong-minded girl who goes to the bad. +Goodness knows I’m not a bad-hearted fellow. I can’t look at such a girl +as Susan without worrying myself about her future career. There’s +scarcely any sacrifice I wouldn’t make--short of the sacrifice of my own +prospects--in order to insure her welfare. Yes, the little stranger, let +into my dwelling unawares, has strung his bow and twanged his arrow home +to my heart. I am really in love this time. I used to feel savage with +those St. B. fellows when they talked nonsense to Rosa: but I think I +should annihilate the man who so much as looked at this girl. Yes; I am +prepared to make any sacrifice--short of the destruction of my own +prospects. Your really rich man, or your penniless beggar, can afford to +make a fool of himself; but I stand just in that middle distance between +the golden lands of plenty and the sterile plains of poverty, in which a +man must needs be peculiarly circumspect. + +“_17th._--I have broken the ice at last. What a little Puritan she is! +And yet I know that she loves me, with the regular Haidee or Zuleika +sort of devotion: would like to kneel at my feet and offer me tiresome +flowers, when I was absorbed in the classic fogies, and all that sort of +thing. A long interview on the Esplanade this afternoon. I beat the +ground with the greatest discretion; for it would have been the easiest +thing in the world to frighten her. It must be a marriage--a _bonâ fide_ +marriage, secret, of course. She won’t object to that. But upon the +other point I can see she would be inflexible. Those quiet people are +always obstinate. Ay di me, my pretty Susy, I fear that you and I must +say Good-bye. And I am really over head and ears in that dismal pit. I +am most absurdly fond of her; that’s the worst of it. Yes, we must say +Good-bye. The catechisms in the rector’s parlour and the Sunday-school +have done their work, and Susan Turner will be a drudge all her life +rather than surrender those ridiculous prejudices which it is the +fashion to implant in the minds of rustic youth. _Addio_, my pretty +Susan. I cannot imagine anything more delightful than our quiet walks in +the cold gray twilight; I cannot conceive any eyes--out of a Murillo--so +beautiful as those brown orbs of yours--orbs is the proper phrase, I +think, when a fellow is sentimental;--but the price demanded is too +heavy. One may buy gold in too dear a market; and ten years hence, with +blighted prospects, and half-a-dozen children, I might grow tired of my +white doe of what’s-its-name, and fancy a blue-eyed Greuze--how +wonderful that man was in his manipulations of violet-hued pupils +swimming in enamelled whiteness!--instead of my Murillo. + +“_20th._--I began to pack my books the day before yesterday, and yet I +linger. ‘Tell me, my heart, if this be love!’ Not much doubt about it, I +fear. But only a day or two more, and then--and then good-bye, pretty +puritanical Susan, with your Sunday-school morality, and all that innate +obstinacy peculiar to quiet women. I shall have forgotten her in six +weeks, I dare say. But then that consolatory idea of the future oblivion +won’t lessen the present anguish of parting. We may forget all about a +gigantic triple-pronged carious tooth when we turn our back upon the +dentist’s torture-chamber, but the pang of extraction is none the less. +I shall forget her, and some other eyes will haunt me in my sleep; but +there must be a long blank interval of weariness before the Lethean +waters can wash away that artless face. I have plumbed her simple mind +to its uttermost depths, and have found nothing like deception or +pretence. So we must part. I to go forth and do my best at opening the +great oyster; she to remain here as my landlady’s drudge and companion. +Poor little thing! I hope she’ll miss me when I go. I shouldn’t like to +think of her enjoying a flirtation with some new lodger--a city clerk, +who would wear ready-made clothes bought somewhere in Shoreditch, and +smoke cheap Manillas. No, I shouldn’t like to fancy her happy when I am +gone. It wouldn’t have been pleasant to the Corsair to imagine Medora +flirting with mercantile mariners in his absence. + +“_21st._--I have packed all my books, except a few German cribs. Perhaps +it was as well, for my studies had grown very desultory. How can a +fellow read hard when there is a pretty girl in the case, and he has +been so profound an idiot as to fall in love with her? But ‘it is +written’, as the followers of the prophet observe, and I must go. I have +told Susan. We had a very affecting interview yesterday. How the poor +little girl cried! And I hate to see a woman cry; it’s so excruciating +to the feelings of a good-hearted fellow; and the prettiest woman’s nose +is apt to get just a _leetle_ red when ‘the tears come trickling down, +down, down.’ O Susan, that I should quote that familiar ballad of Lord +Lovell when I write of your sorrow! But I suppose there is something of +the _persifleur_ in my nature, for I don’t often find myself very +earnest about anything. And so we walked up and down the Esplanade; she +crying, and I talking. I flatter myself I talked rather well. There was +just that dash of excitement about the business which makes a fellow +talk well. But my eloquence was all of no avail; Alfred de Musset, +Byron, George Sand, Rousseau, and Thomas Moore, all combined, cannot +prevail against the tenets of the Sunday-school; and so we are to part, +‘in silence and tears, half broken-hearted, to sever,’ &c., unless I +were prepared to sacrifice my prospects and put the fatal noose about my +neck. + +“Bah! it would be too absurd, too utterly preposterous. Such things have +been, and have always resulted in pretty much the same way. Your poet +Shelley gets expelled from the University because he can’t keep his +convictions to himself, marries a simple rustic maiden, grows tired of +her, and falls in love with someone else, whereon rustic maiden drowns +herself, whence unspeakable _esclandre_ and confusion. + +“_January 2nd._--No, the thing cannot be done; the sacrifice would be +too great. The days of the Minerva Press are past. The yellow +post-chaise, the lonely country inn, the college friend who is +introduced in a surplice, and acts as clergyman--alas! are not these +exploded with the dark ages? Were there ever any such marriages, I +wonder? or were they only figments of the romancer’s brain? At any rate, +anything of that kind must be impossible nowadays. And then a man must +be a consummate scoundrel who could devise such a plot. I don’t pretend +to the Sunday-school species of morality; but _nemo repente fuit +turpissimus_, as Juvenal has it. I am not so bad as that. + +“_5th._--She is very unhappy; and how hard it seems to leave her to this +drudgery and desolation--Coltonslough, and my landlady, and my +landlady’s children, all the year round! And she is just the ‘creature +not too bright or good,’ &c.; the very woman of all others for a cottage +in the lake districts, or a Devonshire fishing-village, or any pretty +out-of-the-way haven, where a man might take his rest. And yet I must +leave her here, baffled entirely by the Sunday-school precepts with +which her shallow mind has been imbued. I have no time to play the +Lovelace, and I don’t want such a victory as his. I have had tiresome +letters from home. They will expect me to get my degree; and I am free +to confess that my reading since I have been at Coltonslough has been +the merest moonshine. Decidedly I must leave this place by to-night’s +express. ‘Better to die by sudden shock,’ &c.: and as for Susan, it is +only a natural chapter in such a girl’s history. She will break her +heart, and then marry a small tradesman, who will give her a Paisley +shawl and a black-silk gown to wear on Sundays. + +“_6th._ Another day, and I am still here. I was awake all last night, +thinking of all manner of possibilities, or perhaps impossibilities. The +yellow post-chaise and the college friend in a surplice are obsolete +absurdities; but how about a marriage before the Registrar? Is there +anything so very impossible in a marriage before the Registrar, which +shall not be, say, _too_ binding? Why not a marriage before the +Registrar, between eight and twelve in the forenoon, with open doors, in +the presence of two witnesses, &c.? You walk into an office, very much +like any other office, and you see an official very much like any other +official, and there is a trifling formula, and a little signing and +countersigning, and so on, and the business is done. But even about this +there would be a good deal of trouble, and the college friend would +still be necessary, though not in a surplice--and the witnesses--and the +office. _Is_ the game worth the candle? Am I really so desperately in +love? And then, again, supposing the game worth the cost of +illumination, these sort of games are so apt to be dangerous; and +awkward stories crop up against one in after-life; with perhaps Chancery +suits, and so forth. No, it is too much trouble. It will be better for +Susan and I to shake hands, like sensible people, and say Good-bye. + +“_7th._--A very long talk with Susan. I told her that we must part; our +roads in life lying separate, and so on. Poor child! her grief was +something very terrible. We had wandered out to some lonely ground +beyond the Esplanade, leaving those abominable children to disport +themselves as they pleased. We sat down upon a little bank at the edge +of a great ploughed field, with the grey sea before us. The poor child +sobbed as if her heart would have broken. I am no deliberate Lovelace, +but I suppose I have in this instance pursued the prey with something of +a Mexican trapper’s intensity. I never meant to be in earnest; but have +been drifted, as it were, by the chances of the situation; and people +who let lodgings at dull watering-places really should not employ such +pretty parlour-maids. Poor, tender-hearted little Susy! I never thought +she could have grown so fond of me, or that a little sentimental +spouting, and a few pretty speeches, could have gone so far. I should +have been a callous wretch if I had not been touched by her grief; and I +was inexpressibly touched; so much so that I flung all good resolutions +to swell the general heap of paving material for the halls of Pluto, and +told my Susy that there was an alternative for this miserable parting if +she would--trust me--and consent to a marriage before the Registrar. + +“She will trust me. I explained to her the nature of the ceremonial I +proposed, and how all unnecessary publicity and the ruin of my prospects +might be avoided thereby. And then the poor little thing burst out with +a whole string of romantic protestations. + +“Did she want me to sacrifice my prospects? Oh no, no! Did she want to +be acknowledged before the world as my wife? No, a thousand times. She +knew very well that she was too ignorant and humbly educated to support +such an honour. She only wanted to know herself that she was my wife, my +own lawful wife, united to me by the laws of heaven and earth. + +“The laws of heaven and earth as administered in a Registrar’s office. I +have cast prudence to the winds, and am now committed to the step which +I only dreamed of as a possibility last night. I have a sort of +foreboding that the business will bring me into trouble; but having gone +so far now, am I to recede? And then I am really desperately in love +with this Cornish girl. + +“How is it to be done? These things seem so simple when one contemplates +them in a dreamy reverie engendered by tobacco-smoke. It will be rather +a complicated business, I fear; and the college friend, that is the +grand question. Who is to be the convenient college friend? Perhaps I +had better sleep upon it. + +“_8th._--After a world of serious consideration, I can think of no one +but my brother. He’s a selfish beggar, who’d scarcely wet the tips of +his fingers to save an entire ship’s crew from drowning; but he owes me +money, and ought to go through fire and water to serve me. At any rate +he is not troubled by any scruples or compunctions of the Sunday-school +order; and then he’s a clever fellow, and on the spot. I’ll go up to +town to-morrow and sound him about it.” + + +There was no more. The journal ended here; and Francis Tredethlyn sat +staring at the last half-page, sorely puzzled as to how he was to read +that broken history. + +That the lines before him had been written by a heartless profligate he +could scarcely doubt, little as he had been accustomed to sit in +judgment on his fellow-men. But he was slow to understand the full +measure of the writer’s depravity. A more subtle mind than his was +required to read the hidden meaning of that carelessly-written diary. +Francis Tredethlyn only understood that his cousin had fallen into the +hands of a selfish worldling, who had been fascinated by her pretty +face, but who set his own welfare and his own happiness before all +thought of her love or sorrow. + +“He meant to marry her,” thought the young man; “thank heaven for that. +No matter how secret or clandestine the marriage may have been, it shall +be my task to find Susan, and to make that marriage public.” + +Mr. Tredethlyn went early the next day to Gray’s Inn, there to hold a +solemn consultation with the chief of that firm which had transacted all +Oliver Tredethlyn’s legal affairs during a period of some forty years. + +To Mr. Kursdale, Francis told all that he had been able to discover of +his cousin Susan’s history; and to the lawyer’s hands he confided the +manuscript volume surrendered to him by Mrs. Burfield. + +“You’ll be able to make more out of it than I can, Mr. Kursdale,” he +said. “Heaven knows I read it carefully; but I can only understand that +the man is a scoundrel, and that it was my cousin’s evil fortune to love +him. I wonder how it is that a simple innocent country girl always does +fall in love with a scoundrel, if he has only got a handsome face and a +smooth tongue?” + +The next day was Saturday, and Francis Tredethlyn’s thoughts were +strangely divided between the contemplation of his cousin’s unknown +wrongs, and the expectation of a day in the sunny gardens and +drawing-rooms at the Cedars. Late in the evening there came a letter +from Mr. Kursdale, the solicitor,-- + + + “_Yourself and Another._ + + “DEAR SIR,--After a very careful perusal of the MS. volume + intrusted to me by you yesterday, I regret to say that I can + only come to one conclusion respecting the intentions of the + writer. + + “I believe that it was this person’s design to involve Miss + Susan Tredethlyn in a fictitious marriage, which should be, in + fact, no marriage at all. + + “A marriage before the Registrar would have been as entirely + valid, if duly performed, as any religious solemnization. + + “I conclude, therefore, that the writer of the MS. diary + contemplated a sham ceremony, in the presence of some person, + falsely representing himself to be the Superintendent Registrar. + + “I much fear that your cousin’s simplicity would render her + likely to be the dupe of any such plot. + + “Should you wish to communicate with me further on this subject, + I shall be glad to wait upon you at any time you may appoint. + + “I am, dear Sir, yours very obediently, + + “JAMES KURSDALE.” + + +“A mock marriage!” thought Francis Tredethlyn. “Yes; I understand it all +now. There was an insolence in his manner of writing of my pretty Susy +that stung me to the very heart. No honest man ever wrote like that of +any woman; _no_ man would write like that of a woman whom he meant to +make his wife.” + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + + + + CHAPTER XIII. + + CAUGHT IN THE TOILS. + + +Francis Tredethlyn spent the bright summer Sunday afternoon and evening +at the Cedars. Mr. Hillary generally filled his house with company on +the day of rest; and hard-working commercial magnates, and lazy West-end +loungers, were alike glad to spend their Sabbath amongst the flower-beds +and trellised walks, under the shadow of black spreading cedars, or on +the terrace by the river. The merchant’s house was only another +Star-and-Garter, where the _menu_ was always irreproachable, and where +one escaped that little bugbear so common to the close of all social +entertainments, and known by the vulgar name of “Bill.” Mr. Tredethlyn +found the house full of strangers, and Miss Hillary very difficult of +approach. He was not allowed to feel embarrassed, however; for Julia +Desmond always happened to be in his neighbourhood, and he found her +society as charming as on the previous occasion. She was so very +handsome, and there was really something so bewildering about her dark +eyes, and white teeth, and fluent talk upon every possible subject, that +the young man--who had never been accustomed to the society of +well-educated women--may be forgiven if he admired her. He admired her, +but not as he admired Maude Hillary. No thrill of half-fearful rapture +stirred his pulses as he stood by Julia’s side upon the moonlit terrace, +looking down at the rippling water, darkened by the tremulous shadows of +the trees; but the faintest flutter of Maude’s airy flounces stirred his +soul like a burst of music. + +But she was only a beautiful, far-away creature, who never could have +any part in his destiny. He acknowledged this in a half-despairing way; +and then resigned himself to look at her only now and then from a +distance, and to behold her always surrounded by those elegant +amber-whiskered loungers, whose admiration of her loveliness never made +them awkward in her presence; who could approach her without suffering +from a sudden determination of blood to the head; who could hover near +her without trampling half-a-yard of her lace flounce to destruction +under the savage tread of a clumsy foot. + +“Those fellows are fit to talk to her,” he thought; “they’ve been +brought up to it, I suppose: but I’m better out of her way; for even if +she speaks to me, I make a fool of myself somehow, and feel as if I +couldn’t answer her. I get on better with Miss Desmond; she’s so kind, +and she doesn’t seem to mind my being awkward and stupid.” + +Yes, Miss Desmond was very kind to the simple-hearted Cornishman. So +kind is Madame Arachne to a big blundering blue-bottle fly that hovers +ignorantly about the net she has spread for him. Julia had angled very +patiently for the last two years in the great matrimonial fisheries, and +had brought several fish to land, only to lose her hook and leave them +to gasp and perish on the bank when she discovered their quality. But +now, for the first time, she knew she had a prey worthy her skill and +patience. She had taken good care to ascertain that Francis Tredethlyn’s +thirty thousand a year was no mere figment of a gossip’s brain, and she +set herself deliberately to work to win this prize so newly offered for +competition in the matrimonial market. Mr. Hillary interested himself in +the young man’s fortunes, and gave him some advice about the management +of some of his Uncle Oliver’s numerous investments. This, of course, +necessitated interviews at the merchant’s offices in Moorgate Street; +and no interview ever came to a close until Francis had received +hospitable Mr. Hillary’s invitation to “run down” to Twickenham. + +The young man seemed always running down to the Cedars. He slept there +sometimes, in a pretty chintz-curtained chamber, all rosebuds and +maplewood, and from whose jasmine-festooned windows he looked out upon +the river--the perpetual river, now shimmering in the moonlight, now +twinkling and glancing in the sunshine, but always “a thing of beauty +and a joy” for the people who dwell upon its banks. + +Yes, he was always riding down to the Cedars. He had departed very +little from his simple habits; but he had bought a couple of horses at +Tattersall’s--such horses as a man who has been used to ride across wild +moorland districts without saddle or stirrups from his earliest boyhood +knows how to choose. He kept the horses at livery near his hotel, and he +hired a smart young groom to attend to them, and even to ride behind him +on occasions. + +Miss Hillary grew accustomed to the young man’s presence, and greeted +him kindly when he came; but then she had so many friends, such +enthusiastic female adorers in crisp muslins, who found the +millionaire’s daughter the dearest darling in the world, and were always +eager to pour some new confidence into her willing ears. She had so many +friends, so many admirers, that Francis Tredethlyn always found her more +or less difficult of approach. And in the meanwhile there was Miss +Desmond perpetually smiling upon him, and talking to him, and listening +to him. + +So things went on very pleasantly for Mr. Tredethlyn, until one day his +eyes were very suddenly opened to a fact that well-nigh overpowered him. +He was lounging on the terrace one sunny afternoon, and, for a wonder, +Julia Desmond was not by his side. She had been summoned into the midst +of a conclave of pretty girls holding solemn discussion with Maude +Hillary on the lawn. Francis was looking down at the water, as it was +his habit to do, and thinking. He was leaning against the balustrade of +the terrace, all amongst the foliage which had been so bright when he +had first come to the Cedars, but which was brown and withered now: he +was watching the dead leaves slowly drifting in the wind, and dropping +one by one into the water; and he was thinking of his cousin Susan. +Nothing had yet come of his search for her. Perhaps he had left the +matter too much in the hands of his lawyers, trusting to their legal +acumen for the unravelment of the tangled skein. It may be that he had +been a little too much at the Cedars, absorbed in the delights of a new +existence. This afternoon, watching the drifting leaves upon the river, +the gold and crimson tints of autumn on the woodland and on the +hill-side, Francis Tredethlyn remembered how the time had slipped by +him, and how little nearer he was to the discovery of Susan Tredethlyn’s +fate than when he had listened to Martha’s story in the dreary Cornish +grange, and had sworn to go to the end of the world in search of his +cousin. There was some feeling of remorse in his mind as he thought of +the past three months, the idle days in that luxurious river-side +retreat, the billiard-playing and cigar-smoking, the pleasant rides to +and fro in the dewy evenings, with genial gentlemanlike companions, who +thought him a good fellow, and very rarely laughed at his ignorant +simplicity. + +He was roused from his reverie now by one of these young men, Mr. +Montagu Somerset, of the War-Office, the scion of a noble house, the +presumptive heir to nothing a-year, and one of the most hopelessly +devoted of Maude Hillary’s adorers. + +“Why, Tredethlyn,” exclaimed the young man, without removing a gigantic +cigar from between his lips, “how dismally you’re staring at that water! +It looks as if you were contemplating _felo de se_, b’ Jove. What’s the +row, old boy? and how do you happen to be alone? Where’s the _fiancée_?” + +“I--I was thinking of some family matters, not very pleasant ones,” Mr. +Tredethlyn answered, simply. + +“But where’s the _future_?” + +“The what?” + +“The _future_--Mrs. Francis Tredethlyn that is to be--the Desmond. Why, +has the lovely Julia deserted her Frank? Why, you dear, simple old baby, +how you blush! Is it a crime to be in love with a handsome girl? I only +wish your young affections had fixed themselves on one of my five +sisters--all most amiable girls, but without so much as a spoonful of +what our lively neighbours call _potage_.” + +Francis Tredethlyn stared aghast at the young official. + +“Why, you don’t suppose--you don’t think that I--that Miss +Desmond--that----” + +“You know those silversmiths on the Boulevards--no, you don’t know +Paris, by the bye. Well, dear boy, there are Parisian silversmiths who +make a great display in their shop windows by means of a concatenation +of table-spoons and a strong flare of gas; but I doubt if in all Paris +there was ever such a notorious case of spoons as the present; and I +don’t blame you, my dear Tredethlyn. If I were not Alexander, I would be +the other person. If I were not madly and hopelessly in love with +blue-eyed Maude, I should fling myself at the feet of dark-eyed Julia: +such teeth, and such a generally regal _tournure_, with thirty-thousand +a-year, ought to make a sensation. Frank, I congratulate you! Bless you, +my boy, and be happy!” Mr. Somerset wrung his friend’s hand with +effusion. + +“But, my dear Somerset--but, upon my word and honour,” cried Mr. +Tredethlyn, in extreme terror and perplexity, “Miss Desmond has been +very kind to me; and feeling myself out of place here, I’ve been +grateful for her kindness; but, as I am an honest man, not one word has +ever passed between us upon any but the commonest subjects; and I am +sure that neither she nor I have the slightest idea of----” + +“Oh, you haven’t, eh?” asked Montagu Somerset, taking his cigar from his +mouth, and staring at it in a contemplative manner, as he knocked away +the ash; “never mind about Miss Desmond; _you_ haven’t any idea of +making her mistress of yourself and your property, real and personal, +eh? You admire her very much, and are very grateful to her for being +civil to you, and so on, but you have no idea of making her an offer of +marriage?” + +“No more than I have of making you such an offer.” + +“Then in that case,” replied Mr. Somerset deliberately, “all I have to +say is to this effect: look out for squalls; when you are coasting on a +shore renowned for its quicksands, you’d better beware of any strange +light you may see ahead, for the illumination generally means danger. +When you meet with such a girl as the Desmond, don’t trifle with her. Of +course it’s very pleasant to ride, and drive, and play billiards, and +loiter through a summer month or so with a handsome girl, meaning +nothing serious all the time; and it _is_ to be done with impunity, if +you are careful in your selection of the young lady. But I don’t think +Julia Desmond is exactly the sort of girl you should try it on with. +There are men in our place, apoplectic old fogies in starched neckcloths +and no end of waistcoat, who knew the Desmond’s father; he was a +south-of-Ireland man and a notorious duellist. They say that Julia +inherits his eyes and teeth.” + +“But you don’t mean to say that I’ve done Miss Desmond any wrong?” cried +Francis. “How should I be otherwise than grateful to her when she was +kind to me, and set me at my ease somehow, and made me feel a little +less like an Ojibbeway Indian suddenly let loose amongst fashionable +people? How should I imagine that she would think of me except as--as +Miss Hillary thinks of me?” His voice grew low, and an inexpressible +change came over his whole manner as he mentioned Maude Hillary’s name. +“They know my history, and that this time last year I was a private in a +foot regiment, with nothing higher to hope for than an extra stripe upon +my sleeve.” + +“Miss Hillary is one person and Miss Desmond is another,” Mr. Somerset +replied, with just the least suspicion of _hauteur_. “The lovely Julia’s +face is her fortune, you know, dear boy. You ask me if you’ve been +wrong; and I tell you frankly, as a gentleman, that I think you have. A +man can’t be exclusive in his attentions to a woman without other people +perceiving the fact, and forming their own conclusions thereupon. I know +everyone who comes here regards the matter as settled, and I heard Maude +say the other day that she thought you a very good fellow--_she_ didn’t +say fellow,--and would be delighted to see her dear Julia so pleasantly +established.” + +“Did she say that?” cried Francis, with a dusky blush kindling under his +dark skin; “did she speak well of me? And if--if she should think I have +done Miss Desmond some kind of wrong by usurping her society and setting +people talking about us--if _she_ should think me mean or base----” + +Montagu Somerset interrupted Mr. Tredethlyn by a long whistle. + +“Oh! the wind’s in that quarter, is it?” he exclaimed; “you’re down in +that list; then in that case I’ve nothing more to say. The river flows +at your feet, my dear friend; and I dare say there’s a rope for sale +somewhere in the villages of Twickenham or Isleworth.” + +The young man sauntered away, leaving Francis with his arms folded on +the balustrade, and his face darker than it had been, even when he had +thought remorsefully of his missing cousin. + +Miss Desmond had not made such very bad use of her time. With consummate +tact she had contrived to detain Francis Tredethlyn at her side in all +those pleasant walks, and drives, and boating excursions, which made up +a great part of life at the Cedars; and it had seemed that the young +man, of his own option, devoted himself to Colonel Desmond’s daughter. +Julia had been clever enough to set the simple Cornishman entirely at +his ease in her presence, and having done that, all the rest followed +naturally enough. It was to Miss Desmond that Francis Tredethlyn +confided his opinions upon every subject; it was to Miss Desmond that he +applied for enlightenment when his ignorance fenced him about with cloud +and darkness, and seemed to shut him out from the people round him. When +the visitors at the Cedars were busy in the animated discussion of some +new book whose name Francis had never heard, and whose contents would +have been utterly beyond his untrained understanding, Julia would +explain to him the nature of the volume, simplifying the subject with a +dexterity that was all her own, but never humiliating her companion by +any display of her own superiority. If art was the subject of +discussion, Julia insidiously demonstrated to the Cornishman the merits +and demerits of any given picture. So Francis Tredethlyn had been +considerably benefited by three months of intimacy with a handsome and +accomplished woman, and he began to feel something like a well-disposed +Maori who had been admitted into familiar intercourse with a family of +friendly settlers. + +But all this time, in spite of handsome, dark-eyed Julia’s kindness, in +spite of all the benefits to be derived from intimate relations with +such agreeable people as the guests who were always to be found at +Twickenham, the one charm that had held the young man constant to the +Cedars,--like some spell-bound knight in a fairy story, who cannot leave +an enchanted castle, though he knows that peril and ruin lurk within its +walls,--the one supreme influence that had taken possession of Francis +Tredethlyn had been the presence of Maude Hillary. From first to last +his faith had never wavered, but his devotion had been the servile +worship of an idolater, who was prepared to find his divinity hard and +merciless. No thought of ever being anything nearer to Maude Hillary +than he now was entered the young man’s mind. She was beautiful, +amiable, loving,--for had he not seen her with her father? She was all +that is most lovely and adorable in womankind: but she was not for him. +In her presence his ignorance and awkwardness seemed to weigh him down +to the very dust; and yet she was never unkind to him, or supercilious, +or insolent. She was only indifferent: but Oh, the bitterness of her +indifference! the anguish of the slavish worshipper who prostrates +himself before his idol, and knows all the while that it is stone, and +cannot have pity upon him! Again and again Francis Tredethlyn had +determined that he would come no more to the Cedars. He would call on +Mr. Hillary in the City some morning, and thank him for his hospitable +kindness; and then he would buy a commission in a cavalry regiment newly +ordered for Indian service. + +“Why should I be always coming here?” he thought. “They’re all very good +to me, the young swells. But I feel awkward amongst them still; and even +if I could fall into their ways, and make myself like them, which I +can’t, where would be the good? I don’t want to be a ‘swell;’ I should +like to be a soldier, with a regiment of glorious fellows to call me +captain; or a farmer, with half a county to ride over, and a thousand +sturdy labourers to take wages from me on a Saturday night; or a +merchant, like Mr. Hillary, with a small fleet of ships on the high +seas. That sort of thing would be life. But to dawdle in a +billiard-room; or lounge at Tattersall’s, and buy a horse one doesn’t +want, out of sheer idleness, and sell him at a loss three weeks +afterwards; or to go for a yachting excursion off the Isle of Wight, +with men to do all the work, and nothing to do one’s self except lie on +one’s back and smoke and drink pale ale all day long: I can’t fancy such +a life as that. So, why should I come here any more? I can’t fall +naturally into these people’s habits. I think sometimes that I was +happier out yonder, brushing the captain’s clothes and talking to the +convicts. What a fellow that Surly Bill was! By Jove, that man _had_ +seen life!” + +Mr. Tredethlyn, lounging perpetually in the gardens by the river, +conscious of his incapability of breaking the spell that bound him, +thought, with some touch of envy, of the brilliant career of his late +acquaintance, Surly Bill the burglar. But now the Cornishman had been +all at once aroused from the pleasant torpor which had crept upon him in +this modern Castle of Indolence. All that was most generous in the young +man’s nature arose in revolt against the thought that he had wronged +Julia Desmond. “It seems so hard that she should have set these people +talking about her by her kindness to an ignorant fellow like me. It must +do a girl harm to have her name bandied about by an idle young fellow +like Somerset. And she stands alone in the world, too, with no father or +brother to take her part. I ought to have told that fellow to hold his +tongue, and I will, too, before I leave this house to-night. But _this_ +decides me, at any rate. I’ve been here too much; I’ll buy a commission +and go out to India, and the lawyers must look after poor little Susy.” + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + + + + CHAPTER XIV. + + VERY PRIVATE THEATRICALS. + + +The river was gray and dim in the twilight by this time; for the first +half of October was gone, and the dusky shadows gathered early on Mr. +Hillary’s lawn. Francis Tredethlyn found the gardens deserted when he +left the terrace, and walked slowly towards the house, where lights were +gleaming in innumerable windows. The young man had only ridden down to +Twickenham that morning, and had no special engagement to dine at the +Cedars. + +“I’ll go round to the stables at once,” he thought, “and I can call in +Moorgate Street to-morrow, and tell Mr. Hillary that I think of going +abroad. Why should I see _her_ again? The sight of her will only make me +foolish, and keep me here in spite of myself.” + +The lady thus vaguely alluded to was not Miss Desmond; but when Francis +Tredethlyn entered Mr. Hillary’s house by the first open window that +presented itself on the upper terrace, he found himself in a little +study much affected by the ladies of the household, and came suddenly +upon a female figure sitting alone in the dark. + +Something like a guilty pang shot through him as he recognized that +stately figure, even in the shadowy obscurity of the unlighted room. In +the next moment there was a rustling of silk, and Miss Desmond had risen +and was facing him in the twilight. + +“Yes, it _is_ Mr. Tredethlyn,” she said, presently. “What have you been +doing with yourself all the afternoon? There has been a grand discussion +about some amateur theatricals, concerning which Maude Hillary is +absolutely bewitched, and we want you to act.” + +“I think you’ve got plenty of fellows who’ll act better than I can, Miss +Desmond; though I did try my hand at the business once in Van Diemen’s +Land; and I’d be glad to make myself useful in any way that would please +Miss Hillary, if it was to dress myself as a footman and carry a +tea-tray or a scuttle of coals; but I think I shall be leaving England +before the theatricals come off; in point of fact, I think I shall be +leaving England directly.” + +“Leaving England!” + +The expression of those two words could scarcely have been more tragical +than it was; and yet for once in a way Miss Desmond was _not_ acting. +All in a moment she saw the fair edifice which she had schemed to build +for herself crumbling into ruin and chaos. + +“Leaving England!” she repeated,--“you think of leaving England, Mr. +Tredethlyn?” + +She put her hands to her forehead with a little tragic gesture: and +Francis Tredethlyn wished that he had entered the house by any other +door or window than that which he had chosen. + +Julia’s dismay was entirely real; for the disappointment was very bitter +to this young lady; who had built up a fair future for herself on the +foundation of Francis Tredethlyn’s wealth. The grim walls of Castle +Desmond, the silver waters of the Shannon, the green hill sides and +lonely valleys, made themselves into a picture that shut out the dusky +room, and then melted into gray blankness. She had meant to do such +great things with Francis Tredethlyn’s thirty thousand a year! + +The young man stood looking at her in as much embarrassment as if he had +been guilty of some wilful deception. He was so little of a coxcomb, +that it was very difficult for him to imagine that his sudden departure +could give pain to the brilliant Julia. He was so entirely simple and +true-hearted, that no suspicion of Miss Desmond’s mercenary views had +any place in his mind. + +There was a very brief pause, and then Julia murmured, in low, +half-broken accents-- + +“You are really going away?--but why?” + +“Oh, Miss Desmond, I scarcely like to tell you why; and yet it’s not +altogether on that account,” answered Francis, vaguely. “There are other +reasons. I am not in my right place amongst such people as I meet here. +I’m a rough, uneducated fellow, and idleness doesn’t suit me. I want to +be of some use in the world. Why, I felt myself a better man out yonder, +without sixpence in my pocket, than I am to-day, in spite of Oliver +Tredethlyn’s money. So I mean to buy a commission and go out to India, +where there’s some fighting to be done.” + +“You are not telling me the truth, Mr. Tredethlyn. _This_ is not your +real reason for running away from the Cedars, as if the house were +infected.” + +“My dear Miss Desmond, I--you have been so kind to me--you have made me +feel so much at home here, where, but for you, I must have felt myself +so miserably out of place.” + +“Why should you be out of place amongst these people?” cried Julia, +drawing up her head with a proud gesture, “unless,” she murmured, in a +thoughtful undertone--“unless because these people are so much beneath +you.” + +Miss Desmond had entirely recovered herself by this time. All at once, +after sitting a long time at the table, playing her cards with infinite +tact and patience,--all at once she found herself losing the game, and +saw that only the boldest play could help her. But Julia was equal to +the situation. The second of December had come upon her very suddenly; +but she did not despair of triumphing by a _coup d’état_. + +“Tell me the truth, Mr. Tredethlyn,” she said, looking Francis full in +the face, with her eyes and teeth gleaming in the twilight; “why are you +going to leave this house? Why do you talk of hurrying away from +England?” + +“Because--because--I have done you a wrong in absorbing so much of your +society, Miss Desmond, and the people here have begun to mix your name +with mine. I cannot bear that you, who are so superior to me, should be +humiliated by such an association; especially when there is no +foundation for their talk,” Francis Tredethlyn added, in considerable +embarrassment. + +“Oh, I understand it all now,” answered Julia, with an unutterable +bitterness in her tone; “you have been warned against me, Mr. +Tredethlyn. I am only a fortune-huntress, and I have been spreading my +toils about your innocent footsteps, and it is only by flight that you +can save yourself. Oh, yes!” she cried, with an ironical laugh, which +seemed to express a keener anguish than another woman’s wildest sob, “I +know how these people talk!” + +“Miss Desmond, on my honour----” + +“Mr. Tredethlyn, on _my_ honour, I know the world better than you do. If +you had devoted yourself to any other woman in this house, to any +daughter of that mercantile aristocracy in which Mr. Hillary rules +supreme, no sneering comments would have greeted your ear. But what am +I--the daughter of the Desmonds of Desmond--amongst these people? What +am I but Maude Hillary’s dependant and companion? I am poor, and I +endure poverty in its most cruel bitterness; for I am poor amongst the +vulgar rich. Who can give me credit for sincerity? who dare trust in my +friendship? I am a well-bred pauper, a fortune-huntress, an adventuress, +a creature whose smiles are to be dreaded, whose society is to be +avoided. O Francis Tredethlyn,” cried Julia, with a sudden shiver of +agony, which would have done credit to a Rachel, “_I know so well_ what +has been said to you. Go--go at once. You are wise to accept the warning +conveyed in these people’s insolent insinuations. Go--there is a gulf +between you and me, for you are rich and I am poor. Beware of me even +when I seem most sincere. Remember that I am a pauper, and the +descendant of paupers--paupers who shed their blood and squandered their +fortunes in a losing cause; paupers who died for the love of honour and +loyalty, two words that would seem the emptiest sounds to merchants and +tradesmen. Oh, Mr. Tredethlyn, have pity upon me, and go.” + +And then Miss Desmond broke down all at once into a burst of hysterical +sobbing, and stretching out her hand towards the back of a _prie-dieu_ +chair standing near her, tottered as if she would have fallen. She did +not fall, however; for before her hand could reach the _prie-dieu_, +Francis Tredethlyn’s strong arm was round her. + +“Miss Desmond,” he cried, “Julia! why do you talk like this? Do you +think that any base thought about you ever entered _my_ brain? +Fortune-huntress, adventuress--did I ever wrong you in my inmost +thoughts by such a name as that?” + +“No,” answered Julia, softly. “_You_ are too noble; and yet you may have +been influenced by others. Why should you think better of me than others +think? Why should not you too despise me?” + +Her voice was broken by sobs, and she was still supported by Mr. +Tredethlyn’s arm. He felt that she was trembling violently. He could +just distinguish her handsome profile in the dusk, and the tears +glittering upon her dark lashes. + +“Despise you, Julia! you who are so superior to me! Do you forget what I +am? Have I not much greater reason to fear your contempt? And you talk +of poverty, as if that were so deep a suffering, while I am so rich, and +care so little for my money. Share it with me, Julia. I’m only a poor +waif and stray as it is; but with such a woman as you for my wife I +might be of some good in the world. Heaven knows you are welcome to my +fortune, Miss Desmond. If you were a man, and my comrade, I would say, +Share it with me as my brother and my friend. But you are a woman, and I +can only say, Be my wife.” + +Julia withdrew herself from the supporting arm. + +“Ah, Mr. Tredethlyn,” she said, in an icy kind of voice, “this is the +bitterest insult of all. The Desmonds do not marry for money; they only +marry where they are beloved, and can love again.” + +“How can I expect that you can love me?” asked Francis. “Do you think I +can forget that I am an ignorant boor, suddenly thrown amongst people +whose habits of life, whose very thoughts, are strange to me?” + +“And you would marry a woman without so much as asking for her love?” + +“I would ask for her friendship and her fidelity. I shouldn’t care to +exact an uneven bargain, Miss Desmond; and I doubt if I could give much +more myself,” the young man answered, rather coldly. But at the sound of +a stifled sob from Julia he changed his tone all at once; a thousand +generous impulses were stirred in him by the aspect of her distress. He +was nothing more than a child in the hands of this brilliant young +Irishwoman. + +“Dear Miss Desmond,” he cried, “I seem destined to offend and grieve +you. If you will share my fortune, if you will accept any best +friendship and fidelity, my whole life shall prove to you how much I +admire and respect you. If you reject my offer, I can only say----” + +But Julia did not allow him to finish the sentence, which she foresaw +would be expressive of complete resignation to her adverse decision. + +“Oh, Francis,” she exclaimed, “you offer me your _fortune_!” There was +something sublime in her contemptuous enunciation of this last word. +“You ask me to accept your friendship, when I have been weak and mad +enough to LOVE YOU.” She was not Rachel any longer; she was Madame +Dorval, all melting tenderness and womanly pathos. She covered her face +with her hands, and then, with something between a sob and a shudder, +rushed suddenly from the room, and hurried along the dusky staircase and +passages to her own apartment. + +The candles were lighted on the dressing-table; but there was no +intrusive handmaiden to annoy Miss Desmond by her watchful glances, her +mute interrogation. Julia looked at her reflection in the glass, and saw +herself flushed and triumphant, with traces of tears upon her cheeks. + +“And my eyes are really wet,” she thought; “but then the chance was such +a good one, and so nearly lost. What a good, simple-hearted fellow he +is! and how happy any reasonable woman might be with him--and thirty +thousand a year! Ah, Maude Hillary! it was very pretty and childish and +nice of you, coming to wake me out of my sleep on your last birthday, to +show me the set of diamonds and opals papa had bribed your maid to slip +under your pillow before you awoke; but _I_ will show you diamonds +before long that shall make you ashamed of that birthday trumpery.” + +Miss Desmond rolled her black hair into a great smooth knot at the back +of her head; and she put on a dress of that fugitive golden yellow, in +which there is an artful intermingling of silvery sheen, and which +milliners call maize--a bewilderingly beautiful colour when seen in +conjunction with a handsome brunette. The loungers who dined at the +Cedars that evening declared that Julia Desmond had never looked so +splendid. Francis Tredethlyn sat by her at dinner, and was near her all +the evening: and at night, when he found himself alone in the pretty +chintz-curtain chamber that he had so often occupied of late, the young +man seated himself by one of the windows, and, pushing open the sash, +looked out at the quiet river rippling softly under the stars. + +“And she is to be my wife,” he thought; “she is very handsome, and I +ought to be proud to think that she can care for such a fellow as I. And +yet----” His head sank forward on his folded arms, and the image of a +beautiful creature smiled before him in all the dazzling brightness of +an opium-eater’s dream. Francis Tredethlyn gave one long regretful sigh +as he raised his head, and looked moodily out at the distant woodland on +the other side of the river. + +“What can it matter whom I marry?” he asked himself, bitterly; “would +_she_ ever think of me, if I were to come to this house every day for +ten years at a stretch? Why, her dogs are more to her and dearer to her +twenty times than I am. And Julia Desmond loves me, and thinks me better +than those fellows with the yellow whiskers, who are always talking of +new books and new music. They please _her_; but Julia despises them. Am +I such a wretch that I cannot be grateful for a sensible woman’s +affection? I _am_ grateful to her. I am proud to think that she will be +my wife. But I wish I was back in Van Diemen’s Land, blacking the +captain’s boots, and smoking shag tobacco with Surly Bill the burglar.” + + +After that dramatic little scene in the twilight study at the Cedars, +everything went on velvet. Julia was triumphant; Maude was delighted and +sympathetic. What could be more charming or more proper than that Julia +should marry a man with thirty thousand a year for his fortune? The only +hindrance to universal happiness in a very delightful world was the fact +that so many people had to do _without_ thirty thousand a year, Miss +Hillary thought, whenever she gave her mind to the study of political +economy. + +“And you will be so rich, dear Julia,” Maude said, as she kissed her +friend; “and if Harcourt and I are very poor--as we must be, unless papa +gives his consent by-and-by--you’ll take us for a drive in the Park +sometimes, won’t you? And if you give many parties in the season, I +shan’t be able to come to them; for you wouldn’t like to see me always +in the same dress--like those poor people at the Union--and I shall be +obliged to get a set of black-lace flounces, like Reder--you never saw +Reder, my last German governess but one--and put them on pink silk one +day, and blue the next, and so on; it’s very troublesome, and the +flounces don’t generally come straight; but then it looks as if one had +so many dresses. Of course you’ll have boxes at _both_ houses, Julia, +and on the grand tier? and you’ll buy a place in the country--and Oh, +where do you mean to live in town?” + +Miss Desmond answered all these eager queries very demurely. Francis +would make all arrangements for their future life, she said; he _had_ +certainly promised her the two opera-boxes; he had made inquiries about +the one house that was to be let in Park Lane; and he was anxious to +discover her favourite county before taking any steps towards the +purchase of an estate. + +“But you know he is such a dear good fellow, and has such a knack of +guessing all my fancies, that really I never like to suggest anything,” +Miss Desmond concluded, modestly. But, somehow or other, without making +any very direct suggestions, Julia had so contrived matters, that in a +few weeks her affianced husband had gratified many of the desires that +had been smouldering in her breast ever since the earliest dawn of +girlhood. + +Already the “family jools” of the Desmonds had been consigned to the +oblivion of one of Julia’s shabbiest trunks, and diamonds now twinkled +on Miss Desmond’s neck and arms, and gleamed here and there in her black +hair, when she came down to dinner in her maize silk dress. Her +toilette-table was all of a glitter with the rings she drew off her slim +fingers when she disrobed at night, before the looking-glass which had +so often reflected a gloomy, discontented face, but which now only gave +back triumphant smiles. + +She was an adventuress perhaps, and her triumph was an ignoble one; but +she was not altogether base. She was prepared to be a good wife to the +man whom she had brought to her feet by force of feminine strategy. She +did not love Francis Tredethlyn; and indeed she seemed to be made of a +sterner stuff than that out of which the women who can love are +fashioned. She did not love her affianced husband; but she meant to be +as faithful and devoted as the most loving wife in Christendom. If she +intended to raise herself upon the platform of her husband’s wealth, she +meant that he should mount with her. Already she had lifted him several +stages on the social ladder. From the very first her watchful care had +saved him from a hundred small solecisms, and in the more intimate +relationship of the last few weeks her refining influence had been +almost magical in its effects. The good old blood of the Tredethlyns +asserted itself, and Julia found her task an easy one. + +“I don’t want you to be like those Government clerks, and magazine +writers, and embryo Q.C.’s,” she said to him sometimes. “I like you to +be big and deep-voiced and--just a little clumsy. The Knights-Templars, +and Crusaders, and that sort of people, must have been clumsy on account +of their armour. I always fancy I hear the clank of spurs when you come +into a room: and when you sit in Parliament you must be the soldier’s +friend, you know, and make great speeches about rations, and +court-martial verdicts, and discipline, and all that sort of thing; and +I shall come into the ladies’ gallery, and strain my eyes by peering at +you through that horrible grating. You will look so handsome with your +head thrown a little back, and your hand in your waistcoat.” + +Now this kind of talk from a handsome woman, whom he knows to be +infinitely his intellectual superior, can scarcely be displeasing to the +most strong-minded of men; and, unluckily, Francis Tredethlyn was not +very strong-minded. He looked down at his Julia with a sheepish smile, +and acknowledged her pretty flatteries in the lamest possible manner; +but when he came to the Cedars next morning, he brought with him the +biggest emerald-headed serpent that he had been able to find among the +jewellers of the West End, and coiled it about his Julia’s wrist. He was +grateful to her for all her tender smiles and pleasant speeches--all the +more grateful, perhaps, because of that uncomfortable knowledge of the +cold void in his own heart, where love for his promised wife should have +been. So he brought her all manner of costly tribute in the way of rings +and bracelets, and necklaces and head-gear; and he bought her a +three-hundred-guinea hunter at Tattersall’s, so that she should no +longer ride Maude Hillary’s horses in the Twickenham lanes. Sometimes, +in spite of himself, even when Julia was most agreeable, the thought +came upon him that he would only too gladly have given her the whole of +his fortune if by such a gift he might have freed himself from the +promise that bound him to her. + +“But if I were free to-morrow, _she_ would not care for me,” he thought, +“and what would be the use of my liberty?” + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + + + + CHAPTER XV. + + A COMMERCIAL CRISIS. + + +The private theatricals at the Cedars were postponed till Christmas, and +in the middle of November Mr. Hillary removed his household to a big +bow-windowed habitation at the western end of Brighton. Francis +Tredethlyn followed, as in duty bound, and spent a great portion of his +life in hurrying to and fro between London and Brighton by express +trains. Never had a better adorer done suit and service to a mistress. +There were no lovers’ quarrels, no temporary estrangements between these +two people. A serene and cloudless sky heralded the coming splendour of +their union, and Maude declared again and again that she had never seen +such a model pair of lovers. + +“Harcourt and I were always quarrelling, you know, Julia,” she said; +“but then we were both such horribly jealous creatures. I didn’t like +his turning over music for other girls; though I suppose he was right, +poor fellow, and a man must either turn over music or shut himself from +society altogether. And he didn’t like my going down to dinner with +people in crack cavalry regiments; but I’m afraid we rather enjoyed +ourselves when we quarrelled, and I used to feel as if it would be the +easiest thing in the world to part from him for ever, and go into a +convent, or marry somebody I hated, or something of that kind; and then +directly we _had_ parted, I used to get so silly and miserable, and used +to write him such penitent letters, taking all the blame upon myself, +and making an idiot of him. But it’s so nice to see you and Mr. +Tredethlyn, and I’m sure he’ll be the dearest husband in the world, +Julia, and you’ll be able to twist him round your little finger.” + +It was not with a feeling of unalloyed pleasure that Miss Desmond +accepted her friend’s congratulations. She was quite ready to admit that +Francis Tredethlyn was a model lover, and promised to be the most +submissive husband that ever bowed himself before a clever wife’s +dominion. His presents were munificent, his attention was unfailing, his +temper serenely even; and yet there were times when Julia Desmond felt +that all was not quite as it should have been. + +She had angled very successfully, and the fish she had landed was a +splendid prize, victoriously snatched from all other anglers; but Oh, +what a difference there is between that poor deluded fish, entrapped out +of the free waters by the cruel hook of the angler, and the willing bird +which flies, of its own loving impulse, to the breast where it fain +would shelter! + +Julia Desmond knew that, in securing a husband, she had not won for +herself a lover; and the knowledge pained and humiliated her. It was a +small thing that she should not love Francis; but it seemed very hard +that Francis should not love her. Her womanly tact would have stood in +the place of affection, and she would have been lavish in the +expenditure of a spurious coin, in the way of pretty words and tender +looks, which should have had all the glitter and some of the vibration +of the real mintage. But with Francis it was altogether different. The +young man had no power to simulate; and there was a deadly coldness in +his wooing that chilled the proud Irish girl’s heart. + +“Are they worth the humiliation?” she thought sometimes, when she +contemplated her diamonds before the lighted glass in her bedroom at +Brighton. “They are very big and brilliant and costly; but I’ve seen +myself look handsomer with a scrap of scarlet ribbon twisted in my hair, +than I look to-night with all these stars and crosses and serpents +flashing and twinkling about me. And then, when I go down stairs, I must +go through all the old stereotyped business; and when I thank him for +the flowers that he sent me this morning, he will look at me with his +cold eyes, and tell me he is pleased to have given me pleasure. What is +he but a clod--a mere clod, nothing but a clod? I ought to remember +that; and yet I am angry with him because he does not love me. Why can I +not be thankful for my good fortune, and accept my future husband for +what he is,--a respectable, well-behaved ploughman, whom an accident has +endowed with thirty thousand a year?” + +Perhaps Miss Desmond did not particularly care to answer that question +which she put to herself in so impatient a spirit. And yet it was a +question that might have been answered, had she cared to fathom the +lower deeps of her own mind. But then there _are_ questions which are +better left unanswered. Why was she angry with Francis Tredethlyn for +that passionless serenity of manner which was so nearly akin to +indifference? Why? unless it was because in her own heart there lurked +the consciousness that the unpolished Cornishman _might_ have been a +very different kind of lover; and that beneath his cold exterior there +were slumbering embers which might have blazed into glory had one +special torch been applied to them. + +Yes, Julia knew this, and the knowledge was a perpetual poison that +embittered the wine of success. The pride of the Desmonds had not been +entirely trodden out beneath the iron heel of poverty. This girl, who +had not been too proud to set herself to ensnare a rich husband, was yet +proud enough to feel the bitterness of her degradation. + +“If he only loved me,” she thought, “I should feel that the bargain was +a fair one. But to know that, at best, he only submits to the force of +circumstances! He has been drifted into the position of a lover, and he +performs the duties exacted of him; just like some non-dancing man who +has been persuaded to dance in order to fill the last place in a +quadrille, and who dawdles listlessly through the figures, and almost +yawns in the face of his partner. And yet I have seen him look at _her_ +until the dull clay of which he is made seemed to change into a thing of +life and fire.” + +And then Miss Desmond was fain to turn to her new jewel-case for +consolation, and to beguile her mind from unpleasant thoughts by the +consideration of all those grand things that may be done with thirty +thousand a year. + +If the young ladies of the household thought it a pleasant thing to +spend the brief November afternoons on that delightful esplanade beside +the sea, Mr. Hillary did not find a residence in Brighton so entirely +convenient. A great deal of his time was spent in journeyings to and fro +by the best and quickest express train in England: and there were days +when even the facilities of a Brighton railway would not enable the +merchant to take his dinner in the society of his beautiful daughter and +her companion. There were occasions on which the two girls sat for a +wearisome hour or so, trying vainly to amuse themselves by some feminine +occupation, or to beguile the time by some feminine discourse, while the +soup grew cold and the Brightonian cook grew angry; and then at last +were fain to sit down at nine o’clock, and make a dismal pretence of +dining without the head of the household. + +“I sometimes think so much railway travelling must be bad for papa,” +Maude said. “I am afraid it must shake him a little; though riding in +the Brighton express is almost as good as sitting in one’s own room. I +fancy papa has not looked so well lately. I have begged him to see Mr. +Desborough, our Twickenham doctor, or some London physician; but it’s no +use, for he won’t listen to me. I can’t tell you how uneasy I am about +him, Julia. He has had so many of his bad headaches lately; and then he +says the business in Moorgate Street has been so heavy. Ah, Julia! what +is the good of being rich, if papa must work as he does?” + +Miss Desmond shrugged her shoulders. + +“Business men seem scarcely to exist out of their offices,” she said, +rather scornfully. She always took care to let Maude know that she +looked down upon the Twickenham splendour and its commercial sources. “I +dare say your papa will devote himself to money-making as long as he +lives.” + +“I sometimes think we might have been happier if we had been poorer,” +Maude said, dreamily, by-and-by. “I can’t help fancying how we might +have lived in some quiet country place, in a low-roofed, old-fashioned +cottage, with a garden all round it and a churchyard close by, and the +smell of cows and the cooing of pigeons; and then I need not have been +separated from----.” She did not finish the sentence; she was talking to +herself rather than to Julia. Her face was beautified by an +inexpressible softness and tenderness as she murmured that broken +sentence. Her thoughts wandered back to the time in which she and +Harcourt Lowther had sworn eternal constancy, standing with their hands +locked together in the dim summer twilight, on the bank of the shadowy +river. She thought of that time, and all the freshness of feeling that +had gone down with it came back upon her suddenly, like a breath of air +from a distant ocean. How frivolous her life had been since then!--how +selfish and useless! What a round of dress and decoration, and hurry and +weariness! Harcourt Lowther’s last letter was in her pocket as she sat +musing despondently by the hired Brighton hearth;--his last letter, a +most melancholy epistle, full of despairing lamentations about the +bitterness of separation and the hardships of Van Diemen’s Land. And +over and above all these feminine perplexities which tormented poor +loving Maude, there seemed real cause for anxiety in the state of Mr. +Hillary’s health. It was not that the merchant himself complained; he +did not complain, and, indeed, appeared to resent any inquiries as to +his state, even when those inquiries came from such a privileged person +as his only child. But every morning at the breakfast-table, sitting +opposite to her father in the bright sunlight, Maude could see a darker +shade under Mr. Hillary’s eyes, a more weary look about his haggard +face. She defied his anger very often, and pleaded earnestly with him, +imploring him to consult a physician; but his answer was always very +much the same. + +“I am subject to this sort of headache; my work in Moorgate Street is +peculiarly hard just now. Pray do not trouble yourself, Maude; there is +not the least occasion for any uneasiness about my health.” + +With such assurances as these Miss Hillary was compelled to be +satisfied. There had been an air of coldness, or almost displeasure, in +her father’s manner to her lately, and Maude found to her surprise that +he was by no means pleased with the matrimonial engagement that had +arisen between Julia Desmond and Francis Tredethlyn. + +“Engaged to _her_!” the merchant exclaimed, when his daughter carried +him the news of Julia’s conquest,--“engaged to Julia Desmond! Why, I +fully believed that he came to Twickenham on your account, Maude. I said +nothing to you about the matter, because girls have sometimes such +absurd notions, and I thought it better to let things take their course. +And so Julia has entrapped him, has she? I ought to have been on my +guard against Ryan O’Brien Desmond’s daughter.” + +“How can you talk like that, papa?” cried Miss Hillary. “I’m sure Julia +and Mr. Tredethlyn are really in love with each other, and dear Julia is +perfectly disinterested. And then, if Mr. Tredethlyn had been ever so +much in love with me--and I’m sure he never cared the least bit about +me--how could you suppose that I could ever dream of marrying him; when +I--when he’s such a very common kind of person?” + +Harcourt Lowther’s name had been almost trembling on Miss Hillary’s +lips, but she had remembered her father’s aversion to that name, and had +modified the conclusion of her sentence in deference to his prejudice. + +“A very common kind of person!” repeated Lionel Hillary, in a thoughtful +tone; “yes, yes, my dear, I dare say he is, I dare say he is. But I’ve +seen women as beautiful as you married to commoner men than Francis +Tredethlyn.” + +And then, after a brief silence, the merchant’s manner changed all of a +sudden; he took his daughter in his arms, and pressed his lips upon her +forehead with an almost passionate fondness. + +“My darling! my darling!” he cried, “do you think it wouldn’t please me +to see you married to a man you could love?” + +Maude looked up into his face with a sweet smile upon her own: her lips +parted, and in the next moment Harcourt Lowther’s name would have been +spoken and his cause pleaded by those innocent lips. But it seemed as if +her father in a manner anticipated what she would have said; for he put +her from him suddenly, and turned away with a faint shiver of pain. + +“I am very sorry to hear of this engagement between Julia and that young +man,” he said, with his face averted from his daughter, and his hands +nervously shuffling among the papers on the table before him. “I am very +much vexed. There, go, Maude; you don’t understand, you can’t +understand. Go, my dear; I’m busy.” + +No more than this had ever been said between the father and daughter +upon the subject of Miss Desmond’s matrimonial arrangements; but Maude +had been able to discover that her father’s vexation was not a matter of +the moment, to be forgotten and done with after the first surprise of +the announcement. Lionel Hillary was tolerably gracious to Mr. +Tredethlyn, but his manner towards Julia changed altogether. There were +times when he scarcely took the trouble to conceal his displeasure from +that young lady herself. He would sit watching her moodily when Francis +Tredethlyn was by her side, and would sometimes, when the conversation +gave him an opening, break out into some cynical generality upon the +husband-hunting propensities of modern young ladies. Francis was too +simple-minded to comprehend the drift of these covert sneers; but Julia +understood her benefactor, and defied him with her bold handsome eyes +and her flashing teeth. + +“He wanted thirty thousand a year for his daughter, I suppose,” she +thought, when she pondered on Mr. Hillary’s discourtesy. “What grasping, +avaricious creatures these rich people are!” + +Christmas was approaching, and that festival period was to be spent at +the Cedars, to which place Maude Hillary was tenderly attached, despite +her sentimental talk about poverty and a simple home deep down in the +heart of rustic England. The young ladies’ portmanteaus had been packed +ready for the departure from Brighton, and Maude and Julia only waited +for Mr. Hillary to escort them on their homeward journey. He had not +been so much with them during the last week or so of their sojourn: and +as Francis Tredethlyn only came backwards and forwards with Mr. Hillary, +the girls had been left by themselves, with no better occupation or +amusement than the reading of new books, the trying of new music, and a +contemplation of the blusterous gray waves beating eternally before +their windows: for the weather had been cold and stormy of late, and the +delicious esplanade had been deserted; only an occasional masculine +wanderer, out for a “constitutional,” buffeted the winds and strode in +dismal loneliness along the pavement beneath Mr. Hillary’s windows. + +It was only natural, under these circumstances, that the young ladies +should have grown weary of Brighton. They had a close carriage at their +disposal; but then driving through perpetual tempest is not particularly +agreeable even in a close carriage. They went shopping in East Street +two or three times during the severe weather, and bought expensive +materials for impossible complications of Berlin-wool work and gold +beads; and, experimentalizing with the same on their return home, +discovered themselves at sea in a wide ocean of perplexity. Thus it was +that they grew very tired of Brighton, and wished most earnestly for Mr. +Hillary’s coming. + +“Oh, for the silvery ring of my own Broadwood!” exclaimed Maude, as she +rose from a struggle with a German rendering of “Polly, put the kettle +on,” in seven flats, and ten pages of double arpeggios. “I wonder _who_ +makes the pianos for houses that are let furnished? I’m sure they must +all be made by the same man; and I suppose it’s a theory of his own that +makes him always use damp wood, and put so much flannel into his +trebles.--I wish papa would come and take us home, Julia.” + +Miss Hillary expressed this wish at least twenty times in a day; and +Julia echoed it, as if out of pure sympathy. But Miss Desmond was not a +very sympathetic person, and she was really anxious to get back to the +neighbourhood of London and Francis Tredethlyn. Nearly a fortnight had +passed since the Cornishman had been to Brighton, and Julia was terribly +conscious that the link which united him to her was very fragile, and +might be broken by any unlucky hazard--unless, indeed, his constancy +were sustained by a chivalrous sense of honour. She had as yet had no +opportunity of discovering his sentiments on this subject, and she had a +vague idea that a small farmer’s son, who had taken the Queen’s +shilling, would be unlikely to entertain the same splendid notions of +truth and loyalty that glowed in the breasts of his superiors. + +“I know that he’s a very good fellow,” Julia thought; “and I don’t +suppose he would steal anything, or tell a deliberate falsehood; but I +dare say he would think it no sin to throw me over at the last moment +if----” + +There was a point at which Miss Desmond’s reveries always stopped short. +She did not care to think about that which Francis Tredethlyn might like +to do, even if he were free to do as he liked. + +Mr. Hillary came home very late upon the evening of an especially +disagreeable day. He came down to Brighton by the mail train, and +arrived at the hired mansion just as the two girls were gathering +together the gold beads and Berlin wools, preparatory to going to bed. +But though the merchant had been so much longer away than usual, he +seemed in no particular hurry to embrace his daughter; for instead of +coming up to the drawing-room, he walked straight to a dreary little +study at the back of the house, which had been set apart for his use. + +Maude had heard the sonorous knock at the big street door, and flew out +of the drawing-room to greet the traveller. + +“At last, dear papa!” she cried. “We have been as dull and dreary as a +pair of Marianas in a moated grange. Oh, you darling papa! I am so glad +you have come! Please take us home to Twickenham: we’ve had _such_ +weather; we’re as helpless and miserable as those poor working people +who go about singing so dreadfully flat when there’s a hard frost. ‘We +are two lonely single girls, and we’ve got no work to do!’” sang Miss +Hillary, with the established nasal drawl, as she skipped down the +stairs. + +“Kiss me, you wet, cold, melancholy-looking papa,” she said, planting +herself between Lionel Hillary and the door of his sanctum. + +The merchant seemed in no very affectionate humour to-night. He put his +daughter aside without looking at her. His face was fixed and stern in +expression, and its gloomy rigidity was in no way relaxed as he spoke to +Maude. + +“Why are you up so late?” he said. “I thought you would have gone to bed +an hour ago. I don’t want to be worried to-night, Maude. I’ve some +papers down here that want looking into, and I’ve brought other papers +with me. I may have to sit up half the night, perhaps; and, remember, I +am not to be disturbed.” + +“But you will be ill, papa, if you work so hard.” + +“I shall not be ill, and I know what is best for myself. I cannot and +must not be annoyed to-night, Maude.” + +He went into his room, where the servant had already made an +illumination that would have been enough for a chapel or a factory, by +means of five flaring gas-burners; but Maude followed him, and was not +to be put off even by the harsh words that sounded so strangely in her +ears. + +“Papa,” she remonstrated piteously, “I am sure that you are ill, or that +something has happened.” + +Mr. Hillary laid his hand upon his daughter’s shoulder, and put her out +of the room,--very gently, but with a certain determination which was +quite a new thing in his treatment of this idolized and exacting Maude. + +“I tell you, once more, that I am going to be--very busy, and must +not--be disturbed.” He seemed tired, for the words came slowly, as if +the mere utterance of them were a painful exertion. “Good night, my +dear; go to bed, and sleep peacefully. God bless you, and take you into +his keeping!” + +His manner changed all in a moment as he said this, and he caught her +suddenly to his breast and kissed her passionately, as he had done on +that other day when they had talked of Francis Tredethlyn. + +But in the next moment Maude found herself standing outside the closed +door of her father’s retreat, amazed and unhappy. That sudden little +gush of affection had been as perplexing to her as Mr. Hillary’s unusual +sternness of manner. It was all alike strange; and vague fears agitated +her as she went slowly up-stairs to the big barren drawing-room, which +looked very little more home-like than a first-class waiting-room at a +railway station. + +Julia had disappeared, and the flaring gas-lamps illumined a great +barren desert of Brussels carpet and emptiness. Dear Julia always +remembered that her good looks were her only dower, and took care not to +waste them by late watching in the glare of many gas-burners. Maude +sighed as she looked round the empty room, and then seated herself at a +table adorned with a gaudy cover that looked like a small Turkey carpet. +She took up the impossible Berlin-wool work, and the gold beads, and set +herself to the task of counting tiny dots and squares on a coloured +paper pattern, with a view to discovering where the Berlin-wool left off +and the beads began. But she was tired and unhappy, and the bewildering +dots and squares made her head ache; so she pushed away the work +presently, and roamed restlessly up and down the room: now stopping by a +table, and taking up a book, only to open it haphazard and stare blankly +at the pages; now lingering by the piano, noiselessly fingering the +notes, and tormented with a wild desire to dash into some blusterous +march that should startle the slumbering household. + +Her father had told her to go to bed. He was going to work very late, +and must on no account be disturbed. He had worked late sometimes at +Twickenham, but not often; and on those occasions Maude had gone to +sleep happily enough, only a little disturbed by the thought of “poor +papa” toiling over those cruel business documents. But to-night it was +altogether different. At the risk of incurring her father’s anger, Miss +Hillary paced wearily up and down the desert of Brussels carpet, waiting +till she should hear the merchant’s step on the stairs, and know that +his night’s work was over. + +She waited, oppressed by a vague uneasiness, and wondering why she was +uneasy. Why was it that to-night the thought of her father’s toil +mingled with all manner of strange fears and misgivings? She was usually +so frivolous, so apt to look brightly put upon the sunnier aspects of +the world around her; but to-night her heart seemed like a leaden weight +in her breast. What was it? why was it? The cheap French clock upon the +chimney-piece struck some abnormal number between twelve and twenty, and +a distant church clock struck two; but still Miss Hillary waited in vain +for that expected step upon the stair. Her father had said that he would +be very late, but she had hoped that at the worst his work would be +finished in a couple of hours. The time seemed so intolerably long to +Maude Hillary, roaming in a purposeless manner about that big room, or +standing in the bay-window to listen to the hoarse roaring of the waves, +or sitting down to read for five minutes together, but never once +knowing what she was reading. + +There had been so few troubles in her life, and looking back at the +smooth sunlit ways by which she had wandered from childhood to +womanhood, she was seized all at once with a fear that there must be +some great grief in store for her. It was quite impossible that she +could have altogether withheld herself from some contemplation of that +startling question as to her right to be happy in a world where so many +people were miserable; but the question had never intruded itself upon +her so awfully as to-night. + +“I have never had sickness, or death, or sorrow near me,” she thought. +“My mother died before I was conscious of her existence--as I think--and +yet it seems strange that there can be any time when a child is +unconscious of a mother’s presence, or heedless of her loss. The worst +trouble that I can remember is my parting from Harcourt; and I have +always hoped that all would come right at last. But to-night--to-night I +feel as if there had been something sinful in my happiness. The sermons +I have heard at church never came home to me. I never felt that I was a +miserable, sinful creature, groping my way upon a thorny path. I’m +afraid I have been very wicked; selfish and idle, vain and frivolous.” + +Looking back at her life, Miss Hillary saw an existence of Twickenham +pleasure, water-parties, and pic-nics, Star-and-Garter dinners, +perpetual Parisian bonnets, and turquoise bracelets, pet dogs, new +novels, opera-boxes, and concert-tickets. Perhaps she had never before +watched and waited alone at these still hours of the dead winter-night, +and these unusual thoughts may have been only the natural companions of +her loneliness. + +She looked at her watch a dozen times in an hour, and at last, when it +was nearly three o’clock, her patience was exhausted all at once, and +she resolved on going down to her father’s room. + +“He will be very angry with me for sitting up so late,” she thought, +“but I _cannot_ go to bed until I have seen him. It will be better to +see him ever so cross with me than not to see him at all.” + +Having once arrived at this determination, Maude Hillary ran down stairs +and tapped lightly at her father’s door. There was no answer, and she +repeated that timid tapping. Again there was no answer, and she tried +the handle of the door, intending to steal softly in and surprise the +merchant at his work. But the door was locked, and her breath grew thick +with the sudden oppression caused by some vague terror. She lost all +command over herself, and knocked loudly, calling in a frightened voice, +“Papa! papa!” + +It was not so strange that she should be frightened. How often she had +heard of hard-working City magnates suddenly stricken down in the prime +of life by some fell disease, unsuspected until that last fatal moment! + +A heavy footstep inside the little room relieved her of these vaguely +terrible fears. The door was opened, and Mr. Hillary stood before her, +very pale, very angry. “Maude! how absurd this is! What have you been +doing? Why have you been sitting up?” + +“Because somehow I _couldn’t_ go to bed while you were working down +here, papa darling. I couldn’t; I didn’t want to worry you or disobey +you; but I don’t know what’s the matter with me to-night. All manner of +ridiculous things came into my head, and I felt that I _must_ see you +before I went to sleep. Let me come in, papa.” + +She pleaded so prettily, looking up in her father’s face with such +tender devotion beaming in her own, that Lionel Hillary must have been +something harder and sterner than the stoniest of mercantile men if he +had been deaf to her pleading. + +“Come in if you like, Maude,” he said, with a weary sigh; “I am sorry +that you disturbed me. I had very nearly finished my work.” + +The littered mass of papers that had been scattered on Mr. Hillary’s +desk when Maude had left him were gone now, and only a few neat little +packets remained in their stead. But, placed conspicuously upon the +desk, Maude perceived a big envelope with a great red seal, and lying +near it a smaller envelope also sealed. + +The merchant had removed his neckcloth. He seemed to have been working +hard, for big drops of moisture stood upon his forehead. A great basket +near his chair was filled to overflowing with torn scraps of paper, and +the shower of waste had fallen far and wide, and lay like snow about the +chair in which Mr. Hillary had been sitting. + +“Now, Maude,” he asked sternly, as his daughter followed him into the +room, “what is it that you want with me?” + +“Why, to see you leave your work and go to bed, papa. You don’t know how +late it is.” + +The merchant smiled a grim smile, and pointed to his watch, which lay +open on the desk. + +“I’ve been working against time, and I’ve kept watch upon every quarter +of an hour,” he said. + +“But you have finished now, papa.” + +“Not quite. I have very nearly finished--but not quite.” + +Miss Hillary shook her head with a pretty petulant gesture. She was not +in the least afraid of her father’s anger now. She had been so tortured +by dim and shadowy apprehensions, that her spirits rebounded suddenly +now that she was by her father’s side, and she was bold enough to defy +him. + +“I shan’t leave you any more to-night, papa. If you had all the business +of the Stock Exchange to transact, I wouldn’t let you sit up any longer, +ruining your health by brooding over those tiresome papers. Besides, +your desk is quite clear; you seem to have done everything.” + +“No, I have not done everything.” + +Mr. Hillary had resumed his seat, and was staring absently at the desk +before him, where all things looked so neat and orderly that Maude +seemed justified in thinking that her father’s work was done. There was +a row of drawers on each side of the desk. One of them was open, and a +bunch of keys hung from the lock. A copy of the _Times_ newspaper lay +across the top of this open drawer; but as Miss Hillary hung about her +father, some portion of the silken flounces or furbelows of her dress +brushed against the paper, and it fell rustling to the ground. Lionel +Hillary turned suddenly with a look of alarm directed towards the open +drawer, and Maude, following his glance, saw something lying among the +neat packets of letters and papers,--something which had no business to +be there; something which seemed to realize a greater terror than any +that her fancy had shaped, however dimly, during those hours of weary +waiting in the room above. + +The object which seemed so terrible to Maude Hillary was a pistol--a +small pistol, of very modern fashion, fresh and bright from the hands of +the gunmaker. Mr. Hillary was not a man who affected the gunsmith’s art, +and Maude had never seen such a weapon in her father’s possession until +to-night;--until _this_ night, when vague fears respecting him had been +so long busy in her brain, only wanting a form into which to shape +themselves. + +It seemed as if her frivolous girlhood left her all at once. It seemed +as if that great terror, coming upon her with such ghastly suddenness, +transformed her into a woman--a woman possessed of woman’s highest +attributes, fortitude, and self-abnegation. She uttered no cry of alarm, +no exclamation of surprise; but she suddenly closed and locked the +drawer in which the pistol lay, and dropped the bunch of keys into her +pocket. Then kneeling down beside her father’s chair, she put her arms +tenderly about him, and laid her head upon his breast. Mr. Hillary had +grown very passive all at once, and sat idly staring at the table before +him. + +“Papa,” Maude said presently, in a low, pleading voice, “what is it? +tell me, confide in me. In whom should you trust, if not in me? What is +it, papa? what does it mean?” + +“It means--ruin!” the merchant answered, huskily. He did not turn +towards his daughter, but still sat staring blankly straight before him. +“It means failure and ruin, Maude; ruin in its worst shape, its most +hideous shape.” + +“You mean that we shall be poor, very poor--that we shall have to leave +Twickenham--that you will be a clerk perhaps in some office, and I a +daily governess. I remember when the Gordons failed, and poor Constance +Gordon and her brothers had to begin the world afresh, without money, +and with very little help from their old friends. Do you think I could +not bear as much as that, and be happy still, if you were with me? Ah, +papa, papa, do I seem to you such a helpless, useless creature, that you +shrink from trusting me at such a time as this?” Hysterical sobs rose in +her throat, but she stifled them, and went on talking to him in the same +quiet tender voice, and caressing him as she talked. He submitted +passively enough to her caresses, but he seemed scarcely conscious of +them. + +“Trust me, papa; tell me everything. Such troubles as these seem so much +less dreadful when once they have been freely spoken of. I remember how +Mr. Gordon kept everything hidden from his family as long as he could; +and Constance told me that it seemed as if a great cloud was hanging +over the house, and there was something in the atmosphere that stifled +them all. But when the crash came at last, they bore it bravely; and see +how well they have got on ever since, in a moderate way. Ah, papa, you +have brought me up like a spoiled child, or a princess in a fairy tale; +and now that trouble has come to us, you think I can’t bear it. But I +_can_, papa; if you will only be brave, your foolish, extravagant +daughter will learn to be wise and patient. I was getting very tired of +Twickenham, papa; and shall be as happy as the day is long in a nice +little cottage in some cheap suburb, where I can have pupils.” + +Lionel Hillary ought no doubt to have been comforted by his daughter’s +tenderness; but unhappily there are some wounds so cruelly inflamed, +that the gentlest application the surgeon can devise is apt to chafe and +irritate them. The girl’s talk jarred upon the merchant’s mind, and it +was with a shiver of pain that he turned to her as she left off +speaking. + +“Child, child!” he exclaimed, fretfully, “you don’t know what you’re +talking of. Do you think it is such an easy thing to pass from one of +the first positions in the City to a clerkship and a cottage in the +suburbs? Do you think there is nothing _between_ such opposite +conditions? Do you suppose I have only to shut up my books, and wish my +creditors good morning, before I walk out of my office! You talk and +think like a child, Maude. It is all very well for an old twaddler like +John Gordon, who suspends payment upon the first failure that affects +his stability, and who winds up his affairs with a dividend of fifteen +shillings in the pound, and the compliments and sympathy of all +Basinghall Street. No one will sympathize with _my_ fall, though more +than I can count will suffer with me. I am not a man to drop under the +first blow, Maude; for nearly three years I have been working a rotten +ship, with the knowledge that nothing short of a miracle could save me +from wreck. The wreck has come. The world will call me a dishonest man, +because I waited for that miracle. I waited as the gambler waits at the +green table, hoping that the last risk would bring me salvation. With me +ruin means disgrace. I tell you, Maude, before the month is out, there +will be a panic in the City, and men will cry out that Lionel Hillary is +a rogue and a swindler. There’s not a man who ever dined at Twickenham +that won’t use his knowledge of my home as a weapon against me. There’s +not a bottle of wine I ever gave a friend whose price and quality will +not be made a reproach against me. Oh! I know how people talk about +these things. Go away, child! Your presence only goads and irritates me. +It reminds me that I might have done better than I have done; I might +have been wiser, I might have saved something--my good name at least. I +have loved you so dearly, Maude,--Heaven only knows how dearly, for I am +no man of big words or sentimental phrases. And now I leave you utterly +destitute, the pauper child of a disgraced father.” + +“But you shall not leave me,” cried Maude, with a sudden energy that +startled Lionel Hillary. “Papa, why do you insist upon treating me as a +child? Why do you judge me by what I have been, rather than by what I +can be? Why won’t you trust me? why won’t you talk to me as if I were a +son, and had a right to share your secrets? You have told me the worst, +and you see I can bear to know it. I can endure even disgrace; but I +cannot bear to lose you. Trust me, papa. I will be patient under any +calamity except----” She was seized with a sudden shivering, and clung +to him with a convulsive force in the small hands that entwined +themselves about his arm. “You know what I mean, papa,” she said. +“Believe that I can bear anything if you will be true and brave and +patient. And even yet the miracle may come. Something may happen at the +very last, surely it may, to save your good name.” + +Mr. Hillary pressed his daughter’s hand in acknowledgment of so much +tenderness and devotion; but he shook his head moodily as he answered +her, “Nothing _can_ happen to save me, unless twenty thousand pounds +drop from the skies between this and the 10th of January.” + +Twenty thousand pounds! Maude’s thoughts flew to her jewel-case, in +obedience to the most universal of feminine instincts. Twenty thousand +pounds! Alas for that birthday gift of opals and diamonds, the turquoise +rings and bracelets, the emerald cross, the delicate pink coral, and all +the fragile fantastic toys of gold and enamel, bought in the dearest +market of elegant West-end dealers, who give three years’ credit. Maude, +in all her ignorance, was wise enough to know that these things would +not realize one of the twenty thousands required by her father. + +“But there is Twickenham, papa,” she said; “the Cedars must be worth +ever so many thousands.” + +“And is mortgaged to the full extent of its value,” answered Mr. +Hillary. “Find me twenty thousand pounds, if you can, Maude; but don’t +worry me with frivolous suggestions. I tell you that it is quite +impossible for a woman to understand my position. God help me! I +scarcely understand it myself. I only know that everything round me is +so much rottenness, and that the crash _must_ come next month.” + +“But you will not think--of that--again!” urged Maude, pointing to the +drawer. + +“No; I’ll wait to the tenth.” + +“For _my_ sake; Oh, papa, for my sake!” + +“No, child; not for your sake, but from a selfish, cowardly clinging to +life,” cried Lionel Hillary, with sudden passion. “It would be better +for you, ten times better, if I were dead. The thought of that was in my +mind as I came down here to-night, until the noise of the engine almost +seemed to thump out the words, ‘Better for her, better for her.’ People +would have mercy upon you if I were dead, Maude; even those who suffered +by me would be less bitter in their reproaches if I were dead. A man can +only break his heart once; and when the man is dead, there is no mark +for the arrows of justifiable reproach, or the foul garden-stuff and +rotten eggs of malicious calumny.” + +“Papa, the help may come; the twenty thousand pounds may be found.” + +“No, child; there was only one hope of that, and the hope is gone.” + +For the first time that night Mr. Hillary looked at his daughter; she +saw the look, an anxious scrutiny that sent a chill through her heart. +She did not ask him what that one hope had been. + +“Papa, trust in me, only trust in me!” she cried; “you do not know of +what I am capable for your sake--for your sake. You don’t know what I +have suffered to-night, and how changed I am by that suffering. Hope for +a miracle even, papa: keep things as smooth as you can, and between this +and the tenth the twenty thousand pounds may be found. Only tell me one +thing. You don’t want anyone to _give_ you the money. If it were lent to +you, you could repay it by-and-by?” + +“Yes; with sufficient time I could repay it.” + +“Then hope for the miracle, papa. Ah! you think me such a child that you +are almost angry with me for telling you to hope; but the lion laughed +at the mouse, I dare say.” + +Five minutes after this, Miss Hillary led her father to his room, and +wished him good night, cheerfully enough, upon the threshold. But under +that pretence of cheerfulness, cruel fears and perplexities were +torturing her innocent heart. Ruin, dishonour, disgrace; the misery of +many homes besides that one household on the bank of the river,--all +these terrors had come very suddenly upon the girl who only that morning +had been impatient of the December weather and the dull gray sky. + +She went to her room; but only to sit with the door open, listening for +any sound in her father’s apartment, which was next her own. She sat for +nearly two hours shivering with cold, and then crept softly to her +father’s room and opened the door. The merchant was sleeping, peacefully +enough to all appearance, for his breathing was tranquil and regular; so +Maude went back to her room. It seemed the bitterest mockery to go to +bed; but then Miss Hillary’s maid would have been scandalized had she +come at eight o’clock and found her mistress still watching. Alas, poor +Maude; for the first time in her life she had to submit to that most +cruel social penance, entitled “keeping up appearances.” She went to +bed; and though she seemed to hear every hour, and half-hour, and +quarter of an hour chimed by the church clocks, she must have slept at +some time or other in that brief remainder of the night, or else how +should she have been tormented by those hideous dreams, in which she was +always wading through black morasses and turgid waters, carrying in her +arms a great bag of gold, which she vainly strove to convey to her +father? + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + + + + CHAPTER XVI. + + A DRAMA THAT WAS ACTED BEHIND THE SCENES. + + +Mr. Hillary escorted his daughter and Julia Desmond back to Twickenham +upon the day following that night-scene of anguish and terror. They left +Brighton rather late in the day, and arrived at the Cedars when the +early winter evening had closed in upon the leafless avenues and groves +about the old house. Lights were burning cheerily in the long range of +lower windows, and in the vestibule and inner hall; and rare groups of +stainless marble gleamed white against a background of bright hothouse +flowers. Deferential servants came hurrying out as the carriage drove +up; and Miss Hillary, seeing her home in all its accustomed brightness +and comfort, felt a painful sense of bewilderment. It was so difficult +to realize the force of that calamity which had been so lately revealed +to her: it was so difficult to believe that all this splendour was so +much rottenness, from which there was only one step to poverty and +disgrace. + +Mr. Hillary had visited his daughter’s room very early upon the morning +after the terrible confidence between them, and had impressed upon her +the necessity of suppressing every evidence of the knowledge that had +come to her. + +“I have been compelled to trust you, Maude,” he said; “and you must +prove yourself worthy of my confidence. Heaven only knows how difficult +it has been for me to keep the secrets of my business during three years +of reverses and misfortunes such as rarely fall to the lot of a +speculator. My only chance of floating over this crisis lies in the +meeting with some friend who will lend me the money I want, without +looking too closely into the nature of the security I have to offer. But +let the state of my affairs once get wind, and all hope of retrieval +would be lost. Remember this, Maude: and, if you love me, show a bright +face to the world; and above all, beware of Julia Desmond. That young +lady is a dangerous person, my dear; and the day may come when we shall +have reason to regret having given a shelter to old Desmond’s destitute +child.” + +“But Julia is a dear good girl, papa; she would be very sorry for us, I +am sure,” Maude pleaded, innocently. + +“Julia has contrived to feather her own nest so remarkably well, that +she would be very indifferent to any calamity that could come to her +friends,” answered the practical man of the world, who had been by no +means pleased with Miss Desmond since that young lady’s conquest of +Francis Tredethlyn. + +Maude kissed her father,--ah, how passionately! She clung to him, as she +remembered that long feverish dream of the previous night, and the +glittering something lying in the drawer; she kissed him, and promised +that his secrets should be guarded more carefully than her own life. + +“And the miracle _may_ be accomplished between this and the tenth of +January, papa,” she said. + +And then, as Lionel Hillary was about to leave his daughter’s room, she +placed herself suddenly between him and the door, and turned the key in +the lock. He looked at her, surprised and perplexed. + +“Maude!” + +“Dearest father, you have trusted me, and you have exacted a promise +from me,” said Miss Hillary, with a quiet calmness that was more +impressive than any vehemence of manner; “and now I want you to give me +a promise, a very solemn promise, my own dear father.” + +She put her hand upon his shoulder and kissed him once more, clinging to +him fondly, looking tenderly upward to his pale careworn face. Then she +took a bunch of keys from her pocket and held them out before him. + +“You remember those keys, papa; I am going to return them to you; but I +want you to kneel down with me here, now, when all that feverish +excitement of last night has passed away; I want you to promise me, as +you hope for mercy and happiness in a better world when this life is all +gone by and done with,--I want you to promise me that you will never +again under any circumstances, in any hour of trial or temptation, think +of that dreadful alternative of which you thought last night. Oh, papa! +remember it is such a terrible sin even to think of it; for we can never +do so until we have ceased to trust in God.” + +The simple words went straight to Lionel Hillary’s heart--that +world-weary heart, in which there was but this one tender quality of +paternal love still left. No subtle arguments of theologian or +philosopher could have so deeply influenced him as his daughter’s gentle +pleading. He knelt by her side, close to a little table, on which an +open Testament was lying, and pressing his lips upon the sacred page +swore that he would never again contemplate the sin which he had so +nearly committed only a few hours before. + +“It is a coward’s remedy at the best,” he said presently; and then he +took his daughter in his arms and looked down at her tearful face with a +mist before his own eyes, which made that bright young beauty seem +blotted and dim. “My Maude, my darling, surely Heaven must have created +you to be my guardian angel. I have not been a good man; I have been too +much of a speculator for the last few years,--a reckless speculator, +perhaps; but when the demon of commercial hazard had his grip strongest +upon me, your image was always in my mind. I wanted to leave you rich, +secure from all the troubles of this world. I was a poor man in my young +days, Maude; and perhaps the bitterness of that early time may have +taught me to set too high a value upon wealth. Fortune came to me +afterwards, almost as wonderfully as it comes to a prince in a fairy +tale; and some recklessness of spirit may have been engendered in me by +my own successes and by the times in which I have lived.” + +“But, dear papa, you need not fear poverty for my sake,” said Maude; +“only trust in me, and when the time comes you shall find me ready to +face it. My life has been very pleasant--too pleasant, I dare say,--I +have always felt that it was so when the thought has come to me of all +the people who suffer in this world. But you know how the princess in +the fairy tale, who has never known a sorrow, goes out all at once into +the great forest, more helpless and lonely than the poorest woodman’s +daughter, and yet no harm ever comes to the princess, papa. If it will +only please Heaven to spare your good name, poverty will have no sting +for me; and if disgrace _should_ come, I will bear it for your sake,--I +will bear it without a murmur for your sake, papa.” + +She broke down just a little as she said this; she could not speak quite +calmly of that most terrible loss of all--the loss of her father’s +commercial honour. She remembered, very dimly, long prosy discussions +that she had heard at Mr. Hillary’s dinner-table, about men who had +failed, and who had failed through some dishonesty or recklessness of +their own, and whose downfall had involved the hard-won fortunes of +others, making a vast circle of ruin, spreading as the watery circle +spreads when you drop a pebble into a tideless lake. + +From this time it almost seemed as if a new life began for Maude +Hillary. No more careless idling over new music, no more eager +commencements of expensive fancy-work that was never to be finished! +After Miss Hillary’s return to the Cedars, anyone taking the trouble to +watch her closely might have perceived a wonderful alteration in her +conduct--a change that was almost a transformation in her very nature. +When she opened her piano now, it was for no idle trifling with +fashionable difficulties, no coquetting with shakes, and skipping of +arpeggios. She practised steadily, and for hours together. Might not the +time be very near at hand in which she would be called upon to gird on +her armour, and join the ranks of the bread-winners? She thought of +herself in a dingy London street, somewhere in the dreary region between +Holborn and the New Road--the region which was once a fair expanse of +pleasant meadow-land. She thought of herself toiling as so many women +toiled, leading the same dull life from day to day; and her courage did +not fail her even before that dismal picture. It was not likely that +this change in Maude Hillary could escape the notice of so observant a +young lady as Miss Desmond. Julia saw and wondered, but she was far from +guessing the real cause of Maude’s unusual gravity. + +“I suppose she is making herself unhappy about Harcourt Lowther,” +thought Miss Desmond. “These fortunate people always contrive to find +_one_ crumpled leaf in their beds of roses. She is making herself +miserable about that handsome, worthless soldier, and she thinks herself +hardly used because she cannot play at love in a cottage, with a rich +mercantile father to pay the expenses of the idyllic _ménage_.” + +This was how Julia Desmond accounted for Maude’s long intervals of +absent brooding, and that melancholy shadow which settled on her face +whenever she fancied herself unnoticed, and for a while relaxed the +heroic effort with which she tried to keep her promise, and guard her +father’s secret. It was a very hard struggle. All the young idlers, the +government clerks, the briefless but literary barristers, the rising +artists who had narrowly escaped making palpable hits at the Royal +Academy, or at a temple of art which they irreverently alluded to as the +“British Inst,” all the accustomed Twickenham loungers flocked down to +the Cedars to keep their Christmas holidays in the house of a gentleman +whom they regarded as a sort of commercial Midas--a Moorgate Street +Fortunatus, from whose inexhaustible coffers flowed the golden waters of +perpetual prosperity: and Maude received all the old incense, and was +fain to smile something like the old smiles upon her worshippers; while +her heart ached with an unceasing pain, and a hidden dread that was like +a palpable burden weighed for ever on her breast. + +“Oh, if they knew--if they only knew!” she thought. “They court me +because they think I am rich, perhaps; but if they only knew what an +imposture all this splendour is--these lights and flowers, and grapes +and pines, and Sèvres china and Venetian glass, and all this long parade +of dinner! if they knew that poverty and disgrace may come to us before +the new year has well begun!” Sometimes, in her utter weariness of +spirit, sometimes when the social comedy seemed almost too hard to act, +Miss Hillary felt suddenly tempted to turn round upon her admirers, and +cry to them,-- + +“Why do you torment me with your hackneyed compliments? I am _not_ the +daughter of a millionaire; my father is only an imprudent speculator, +who is hovering on the verge of a black abyss of bankruptcy and ruin. Go +and offer your worship in some solvent temple, and leave me alone with +my father and his sorrows.” + +This, or something akin to this, Miss Hillary was at times sorely +tempted to utter. But she kept her promise. She had promised that no +word or action of hers should betray the rottenness of her father’s +position, and she kept a close watch upon herself. Her adorers--who were +by no means so mercenary as she thought them--perceived that something +was amiss with their goddess; but were far from associating anything so +vulgar as the state of the money-market with the lessened lustre of her +smiles. + +“She’s engaged to some fellow in the army, and her father won’t let her +marry him, and the fellow writes her worrying letters; Miss Desmond told +me as much,” the loungers said one to another, when confiding in each +other about Miss Hillary. + +The brilliant Julia had taken care to let Maude’s admirers know that her +heart had long been bestowed upon a remote object; but she did not go so +far as to reveal the name of Miss Hillary’s chosen lover; and Francis +Tredethlyn had no suspicion that Maude Hillary and the beautiful heiress +of whom his master had so often spoken were one and the same person. He +knew nothing of this; he only knew that Maude seemed as remote from his +sphere as the distant stars that shone coldly upon him out of a +steel-blue winter sky when he looked from his window at the Cedars. He +spent his Christmas at the Cedars; for Mr. Hillary had been specially +cordial and hospitable to him of late, and had resumed all his old +graciousness of manner to Julia. + +And the private theatricals, the elegant drawing-room exhibition of +amateur histrionics, which Maude had planned so merrily in the autumn, +were to take place on the first night of the new year--now, when the +poor girl’s heart was sinking under the dull pain of that perpetual +burden, that dreary terror of the disgrace which might be so near. + +She had told her father that a miracle might be wrought before the 10th +of January. Of what had she thought or dreamed when she held out that +hope? What daring fancy had been engendered out of the excitement of the +moment? There are times when a woman feels capable of becoming a social +Joan of Arc, a bloodless Charlotte Corday; but then the enthusiasm, the +exaltation of the moment is so apt to pass _with_ the moment. There had +been a vague but desperate intention lurking in Maude Hillary’s mind +when she had encouraged her father by those hopeful speeches; but the +days were creeping past, the new year was close at hand, and nothing had +been done. Nothing had been done; and now Miss Hillary was tormented all +day long about these wonderful private theatricals, which were to +surpass every drawing-room performance since the days when the unhappy +daughter of the Caesars played a _soubrette_ for the delight of that +taciturn king and grandfather-in-law who did not like to laugh. + +All arrangements for the grand entertainment had been made before Mr. +Hillary’s household removed to Brighton. The play had been selected, the +characters allotted to the individuals who were supposed, or who +supposed themselves, to be most fitted to play them; but not without as +much shuffling and changing as the kings and queens undergo in a game of +cards. The drama finally chosen was the “Lady of Lyons,” selected, no +doubt, on that grand principle in accordance with which all amateurs go +to work, _i. e._ because it is a play which specially requires +accomplished actors in every one of its characters. Of course Maude was +to be the _Pauline_. Was she not sole daughter and heiress of the master +of the house, at whose expense all the business was to take place? If +she had been red-haired, or hump-backed, or lame, the amateurs could +scarcely have done otherwise than choose her as the representative of +the lovely _Mademoiselle Deschappelles_. But as she was one of the +fairest daughters ever spoiled by a wealthy merchant, she was really +created for the part, as it seemed; and she had only to order her +dresses and let down her sunny hair in the classic disorder of the +period, and she would be the loveliest _Pauline_ that ever won the +simple heart of an aspiring young gardener. But how about _Claude_? At +first every one of the amateurs had desired to play _Claude_, and +nothing but _Claude_. To wear that impossible velvet coat, with its +lavish embroidery of gold and spangles; to snub _Beauseant_, and to +patronize _Damas_; to flourish diamond snuff-boxes and rings, and filmy +ruffles of point d’Alençon, which are _so_ becoming to the unhappy +amateur, whose hands are apt to assume the rich purple hues of raw beef +under the influence of extreme terror; to hold Miss Hillary in their +arms, and cry, “Oh, rapture!” in a ponderous bass voice apparently +situated somewhere in those martial jackboots, without which _Claude_ +would be less than _Claude_,--to do all this seemed to the young men at +the Cedars a glory and delight which would be cheaply won by the cutting +of one another’s throats in a _champ clos_. + +And then to what base hypocrisies these amateur actors descended! +declaring to one another that, after all, _Claude_ was _not_ such a +great part! Nay, indeed, was not the heroic gardener something of a +spoon, liable to provoke laughter if his velvet coat failed to fit, or +his humble blouse looked too much like a little boy’s pinafore? _Claude_ +might be a very fine part, the amateurs argued to each other, in a +regular theatre, where there were the gallery fellows to applaud the +long speeches, and to stamp their hob-nailed boots in the great +situations, and all that sort of thing, you know; but your drawing-room +audiences are apt to laugh at strong sentiment; and, in short, for a +private performance, _Damas_, or _Beauseant_, or _Glavis_ were the great +parts. + +So there was a good deal of chopping and changing, with vengeful +feelings attendant thereupon; and at last, after almost all the +privileged guests at the Cedars had made themselves hoarse in the +endeavour to cultivate that bass voice and peculiar melodious gurgle so +often heard on the stage, and so rarely heard off it; after innumerable +tryings-on of velvet coats and cocked hats before cheval-glasses,--it +transpired all at once that nobody wanted to play _Claude Melnotte_. The +noblest hearts sank with a sickly terror before the thought of all +Twickenham assembled in solemn conclave to listen to those long speeches +with which the peasant husband endeavours to appease the natural anger +of his bride. One by one the amateurs had made the awful discovery, that +after all there is some touch of art, not to be learned in a day, even +in the actor’s trade. One by one they had discovered that they lacked +_physique_ for the leading character; and that, after three acts or so +of blank verse, they were apt to become hoarse and roopy, and to break +ignominiously from that melodious bass gurgle into a treble squeak. So +it came about that there was no one to play _Claude_, and Miss Hillary +clasped her hands in anguish, and demanded what was to become of her. +All Twickenham and Hampton Court, Richmond and Ham, and all sorts of +people from town invited to witness the “Lady of Lyons,” and no _Claude_ +_Melnotte_! One of the government clerks, who fancied himself an embryo +Buckstone, timidly suggested “Box and Cox” as a fitting substitute for +the drama; but Miss Hillary turned from him with disdain. “Box and Cox!” +she exclaimed, contemptuously; “why, my dresses are all ordered, and the +white satin for the wedding-dress is to be five-and-twenty shillings a +yard. I _must_ have some one for _Claude_.” + +And then at last it was discovered that Francis Tredethlyn, who had +volunteered to carry a tea-tray or a coal-scuttle, or to announce a +carriage, or to perform any ignominious part in the drama for Miss +Hillary’s pleasure,--it was discovered all at once that this young man +was able to act. He was no untaught Macready, no ready-made Kean; but he +was able to do what the best of the government clerks and literary +barristers failed in doing; he was able to roll out the melodious blank +verse in a big, deep voice, that never failed him to the end of the +chapter. The stage is almost as great a leveller as death himself, and +on that little platform at Twickenham uneducated Francis Tredethlyn was +quite as much at his ease as the well-bred young men about him: more at +his ease, for he was not so bent upon distinguishing himself, and was +indeed only eager to oblige Miss Hillary. All this had happened before +the autumn visit to Brighton; and now when Maude returned to the Cedars +she found busy workmen making a perpetual hammering in the apartment +which had been chosen for the scene of the entertainment. Mr. Hillary +did everything in a superb manner; there was to be no pitiful +contrivance of folding-doors festooned by suburban carpenters, but +accomplished people from town had come down to the Cedars, and a +magnificent archway of white and gold spanned the lofty billiard-room +which the merchant had built at one end of his house. All the +arrangements were to be perfection; the lighting of the small stage was +to be a miracle of art; the grouping of the furniture had been studied +by _genre_ painters of no mean pretensions. Poor Maude grew sick at +heart as she heard all these details discussed. She looked back, and +wondered, as she remembered what a frivolous creature she had been only +a few months ago, and how this amateur dramatic performance had seemed a +matter of supreme importance to her; and now she repeated the words +mechanically during those long rehearsals, in the course of which the +amateurs had so many angry disputations, and so cruelly victimized Mr. +Hillary’s pale sherry. + +At last the new year began, and at ten o’clock upon the first night in +January long lines of carriages filled the avenue at the Cedars, and the +road outside the lodge-gates, until the neighbourhood was luminous with +flaring lamps that glared redly in the winter darkness. People came from +far and wide to see Miss Hillary play _Pauline_, and to devour Mr. +Gunter’s supper, though Miss Hillary’s heart might be breaking, and the +merchant’s head splitting with the weight of care that pressed just now +upon his overtaxed brain! But people _do_ get through, these things +somehow; and Lionel Hillary walked about his drawing-rooms, looking +supremely gentlemanly in a stiff cambric cravat, and uttering mild +commonplaces for the edification of new arrivals. + +People get through these things. Poor Maude’s head ached with a dull +pain as her maid arrayed her in a dress of white silk, showered with +rosebuds, and flounced and looped with lace and ribbon. Would any of +this finery be paid for, Miss Hillary wondered, as she saw her splendour +reflected in the cheval-glass; or was it altogether dishonesty and +wickedness? She shuddered as she thought of this: but the entertainment +of to-night was only a part of the grand hypocrisy which might help to +float Mr. Hillary safely over the terrible crisis, and Maude determined +to be true to her promise. So she smiled at Julia Desmond, when that +young lady, who was to play _Madame Deschappelles_, came to exhibit +herself in powder and patches, and brocade and diamonds, and with half +the point-lace in South Audley Street bestowed upon her handsome person. +Miss Desmond had consented with amazing graciousness to perform the +matronly _rôle_ allotted to her; but she had determined to look like a +marquise of the time of Louis Quinze, and she had despatched Francis +Tredethlyn on half-a-dozen shopping expeditions, until that gentleman +was fain to wonder how a few ribbons, brocaded fabrics, and yellow old +lace flounces, could cost the big sums for which he wrote cheques in +favour of the West-end tradesmen to whom Julia sent him. + +The two girls admired each other’s dresses, and the maid joined in a +perfect chorus of laudations with the young lady who _would_ play the +_Widow Melnotte_ in a nine-guinea black moire antique, and a point-lace +cap and apron, and who kept snatching a manuscript copy of her part from +her pocket, and furtively gabbling its contents in dark corners. The +girls admired each other, and sailed down the broad staircase together, +and then went straight to a little ante-room, where half-a-dozen +gentlemen, in attitudes expressive of supreme mental agony, were bending +over half-a-dozen copies of the “Lady of Lyons,” and gabbling +vehemently. + +There is no occasion to describe this amateur performance at the Cedars, +inasmuch as it very closely resembled all other amateur performances. +Miss Hillary, stepping on to a stage for the first time, was, to say the +least, not _quite_ a Helen Faucit, and was on the point of breaking down +now and then in some of her grand speeches; but she looked so beautiful +in her perplexity and confusion, that the elegant audience encouraged +and supported her by the gentlest tappings of spangled fans and pattings +of tight kid gloves. There were no tiresome boys in the gallery to urge +her to speak up; no critical chimney-sweeps to murmur their disapproval, +or hint that she had better go home and learn her part. There was only +admiration for her timid loveliness, and the soft music of her tremulous +voice. + +Of course there were the usual number of dead pauses in the drama, +technically known as “stage-waits,” the solemn silences in which the +actors stood still and looked imploringly at one another, while the +voices of amateur prompters--always inciting their victims to the +utterance of long speeches--were painfully audible throughout the +assemblage. Mr. Tredethlyn rolled out his blank verse with a sturdy +courage that was worthy of all praise; and if his hands were a little +red, and his blue-cotton blouse slightly suggestive of Newgate Market, +he had acted with his brother soldiers in very rough amateur +performances out in Van Diemen’s Land, and now and then some touch of +natural fire, some little bit of tender pathos, startled the well-bred +audience into applause. It may be that now and then Francis Tredethlyn +found himself carried away by the spirit of the scene. Did not that +romantic drama bear some likeness to his own story? This beautiful +_Pauline_, this unapproachable being whose lovely image filled the +peasant’s dreams, who was she but Maude Hillary herself? Perhaps if Miss +Desmond had been the _Pauline_, Francis might have seemed as cold and +tame as the rest of the Twickenham amateurs: but the eyes that looked at +him tenderly or reproachfully to-night, were the only eyes in all the +world that had the power to move him deeply. He acted well, therefore, +as the dullest man will act sometimes under the influence of some +factitious excitement: and when the curtain fell upon the final scene of +happy and triumphant love, the audience were loud in their praise of +“that handsome-looking Mr. Tredethlyn, who was just the very man for +_Claude Melnotte_.” + +Then there was a final parting of the curtains and a shower of bouquets, +all in the orthodox style, and Maude felt perfumed petals fluttering +about her as she curtseyed to her indulgent audience. + +All through that last act she had surprised those well-bred spectators +out of their natural languor. The _Pauline_ who had been so tame and +unimpassioned in the grand cottage scene, was carried away by a strong +tide of passionate feeling in that last act, where the half +broken-hearted daughter pleads for her insolvent father. Sobs almost +choked Miss Hillary’s utterance more than once in this scene; and when +at last her head lay for a few moments on Francis Tredethlyn’s breast, +the young man’s martial decorations were wet with real tears. The sight +of that emotion moved him strangely, though he beheld in it nothing more +than the natural excitement of a highly sensitive organization. After +the little ovation that came with the close of the drama, he followed +Maude Hillary into the ante-room, where the rest of the amateurs were +discussing the night’s business, and flirting with the splendid Julia, +and thence to an inner room, less brilliantly lighted, and quite +unoccupied. Beyond this inner room there was another apartment--the +study in which Francis had fallen an easy victim to the wiles of the +Hibernian enchantress--and it was to this room that Maude hurried, still +followed by Mr. Tredethlyn. + +He had no business to follow her. He knew that very well. His business +was with Julia, who had acted _Madame Deschappelles_ with wonderful +spirit, and for whom the evening had been one long triumph, inasmuch as +her lace, and diamonds, and brocade, and dark eyes, and white teeth, had +been the subjects of universal admiration. Mr. Tredethlyn’s business lay +in that brilliantly-lighted ante-chamber where Julia sat amongst the +government clerks, and barristers, and grand military dandies, while an +accompaniment of perpetually popping champagne-corks mingled pleasantly +with the noise of their laughter. He knew this, and yet he followed +Maude to the dimly-lighted study, where the red glow of the fire +flickered on the bindings of the books and the frames of the pictures. +He could not leave off being _Claude Melnotte_ all in a moment. The +exaltation of the mimic scene was still upon him. Just now he had been +carried quite away by the influence of the poetic situation; and when he +flung down the sham money, which was to release the merchant’s daughter +from her hated suitor, a warmer thrill of triumph had stirred his breast +than had ever been engendered by the possession of Oliver Tredethlyn’s +thousands. + +And now he could not fall back to his old position all at once. Only a +minute or two ago Maude Hillary had been sobbing on his breast,--his +bride, his wife; and he half fancied he had some kind of right to +sympathize with her emotion. He stopped suddenly on the threshold of the +study, quite unmanned by the sight of Mr. Hillary’s daughter, half +kneeling, half lying on the ground, with her face buried in the cushions +of a sofa, and her hands clasped in a despairing attitude above the fair +tangled hair that had so lately lain upon his breast. Her whole frame +was shaken by the vehemence of her sobs; and before such a picture as +this it was scarcely strange if poor country-bred Francis Tredethlyn +quite forgot that he was _not_ Claude Melnotte. He bent over the +prostrate girl, and laid his big fingers gently upon one of those little +bejewelled hands clasped so convulsively above the fair head. + +“Miss Hillary,” he exclaimed, “dear Miss Hillary, for pity’s sake, tell +me what distresses you--what has happened--what is wrong--or--I--I beg +your pardon--you have over-fatigued yourself, and you are hysterical; +let me send for your maid.” + +“Oh, no, no, no!” cried the girl, rising to her feet, and standing +before him, but with her face still hidden from him, hidden by her +outspread hands and her dishevelled hair. + +“Shall I call Julia? she is in the room yonder.” + +“Oh, no! I--I want to speak to you, Mr. Tredethlyn; stay just a little, +please. Ah! it is so hard, so cruel, but the last chance! In all the +world there is no one else who can save me--and my father--my poor, +miserable, bankrupt father!” + +Francis looked at Miss Hillary in complete bewilderment. Her father--her +bankrupt father! Why, then she was still thinking of the scene that was +just finished, and the commercial troubles of Monsieur Deschappelles; +which character, by the way, had been enacted by a very young man of a +sickly cast of countenance, and an inclination to hang his head +dejectedly throughout the performance of the drama. It is a rule amongst +amateurs to assign the elderly and ineligible characters to the youngest +and meekest members of the company; whereby Monsieur Deschappelles is +usually represented as a young person of some nineteen summers, with +flour in his hair, dirty streaks, supposed to represent wrinkles, upon +his face, and a tendency to squeakiness in his voice. + +“I am sure you are over-fatigued, over-excited by the play,” urged +Francis; “do let me call Julia.” + +“No!” cried Miss Hillary, dropping her hands from before her face. “Oh, +Mr. Tredethlyn,” she exclaimed, almost passionately, “can’t you +understand--can’t you see that I am in earnest? Do you think that scene +just now would have made me cry as it did, if it had not reminded me of +my own sorrow? Mr. Tredethlyn--I--I know you are a good man, that you +would not be slow to do a kindness for anyone who needed your help; I +know that; and I--I thought I should have courage to speak to you, but +now the words won’t come--I----” + +Her dry lips moved, but made no sound. She clasped her hands once more +before her face. Heaven knows how desperate was the effort that she +made. It is not such an easy matter to borrow twenty thousand pounds; +even though the borrower may be young and beautiful, and accustomed to +perpetual adoration. + +“Miss Hillary, you speak of help--needing help--from _me_. For mercy’s +sake, tell me how I can help you. Do you think there is anything upon +earth that would give me such pride and delight as to be of service to +you?” + +The enthusiasm of the moment lighted up Francis Tredethlyn’s countenance +like a sudden glow of summer sunshine. Maude uncovered her face and +looked at him, and saw at once that her cause was gained; her father’s +preserver was found. She had not counted in vain upon Francis +Tredethlyn. + +“I want you to lend papa twenty thousand pounds,” she said; “I know that +he will repay you honourably. He has some difficulties--terrible +difficulties in his business,--but the loan of twenty thousand pounds +would smooth them all away. I know that you are very, very rich, Mr. +Tredethlyn, and that you can afford to lend such a sum of money, or I +should never have dared----” + +“You would not have dared, Miss Hillary? Oh, can you doubt that I would +give the last sixpence I have in the world, the last drop of my +heart’s-blood, to save you from one pang? Twenty thousand pounds! Take +forty--fifty thousand--the utmost farthing of my fortune, if you will; +squander it--throw it into the river yonder, if the waste of it can give +you a moment’s pleasure. Oh, you don’t know, you don’t know how I love +you!” + +He had been acting _Claude Melnotte_, and the intoxication of the sweet +sentimental poetry was strong upon him; beyond which it is just possible +that he may have taken a little more sparkling Moselle in the course of +his dramatic exertions than can safely be taken by a young man of +sanguine temperament. All prudence, all power of reticence, left him in +that moment, and he dropped on his knees at Miss Hillary’s feet, like a +lover in a stage-play. She was so beautiful--she seemed so far away from +him even now, when her distress had brought her a little nearer than of +old,--that this attitude of adoration seemed quite natural to him, +almost the only attitude in which he dared address her. + +“Oh, if you knew how I love you,” he cried, passionately,--“if you could +only believe or understand! But I am so ignorant--so unworthy--so far +beneath you!” + +Miss Hillary drew herself away from him with a gesture of mingled +surprise and disgust. + +“You dare to talk to me like this, and you are the affianced husband of +my friend!” she cried. “O, Mr. Tredethlyn, you take a very mean +advantage of my father’s difficulties and my distress.” + +“Yes!” answered Julia Desmond from the doorway. She had been standing on +the threshold for the last few moments, watching this interview behind +the scenes. “Yes! it is altogether mean and shameful, Maude Hillary. You +have taken a noble course, I think, when you fling your father’s debts +upon the man who was to be my husband, and coolly ask him for the +trifling loan of twenty thousand pounds.” She laughed bitterly as she +named the sum. “Twenty thousand pounds--and you ask your friend’s lover +to turn money-lender; and you bring your tears and hysterical sobs, and +a thousand pretty amateur dramatic devices to bear, in order to obtain +what you want, and all in the most childish innocence, of course. And +then you turn upon the man whom you have lured to your feet by a hundred +tricks and artifices, and make a charming show of surprise and +indignation. Ah! it is shameful, Maude Hillary--mean and cruel and +false; and bitter shame shall come to you for this night’s work.” + +The Irishwoman was superb in her indignation. Those flashing eyes and +glittering teeth, hereditary in the race of the Desmonds, seemed to +light her face with an infernal kind of splendour: such a splendour had +many a fated victim seen upon the countenance of the duelling Irish +colonel, just before he fell prone on some lonely field beside the +Shannon. It was against Maude that the fuller fury of Julia Desmond’s +rage was directed,--against Maude, of whom she had always been jealous, +in whom she had continually found a triumphant rival. It was only after +that outburst of jealous rage that Julia turned upon her recreant lover. +Francis had risen from his knees, and stood a little way from the two +girls, with a dogged moodiness upon his face: he was sobered by Maude’s +indignation and Julia’s passion, and he was dimly aware that he had +acted like a scoundrel. + +“As for you, Mr. Francis Tredethlyn,” Miss Desmond said presently, “I +suppose I have no need to tell you that all is over between us, and that +I bitterly repent the humiliation my own folly has brought upon me. I +should have known how much I risked when I stooped to regard a person +whose code of honour belongs to a different world from that in which I +have been reared. I suppose amongst _your_ people it is the fashion for +a man to pledge himself to one woman and then make love to another; but +such is _not_ the custom in the circles where the Desmonds have been +used to be welcome. I should have known what I had to expect when I came +into this house. I should have known what I had to anticipate when I +trusted in the truth and loyalty of a man who is not a gentleman.” + +Throughout this speech Julia’s hands had been moving rapidly, but with +unfailing purpose, though they trembled a little all the while. One by +one she had unfastened the diamond ornaments that had glittered upon her +head and wrists, her throat and bosom; and now the jewels lay in a +little heap at the feet of Francis Tredethlyn. One by one she had thrown +them there during that passionate speech. She _could_ not act her play +out. She had been unable to support the character she had undertaken. +The fiery blood of the Ryan O’Brien Desmond had asserted itself in spite +of all the promptings of prudence, all the bitter schooling of +experience. It was very dreadful to be poor and dependent; it would have +been delightful to be mistress of thirty thousand a year: but Julia +Desmond, coming to the threshold of the study, had heard Maude’s appeal +for the twenty thousand pounds, and Francis Tredethlyn’s impassioned +avowal; and patience and policy had alike deserted her. Carried away by +the impulse of the moment, she renounced everything. At last Francis +Tredethlyn spoke for himself. + +“I know that I have acted very badly,” he said. “I had no right to +speak; I never should have spoken but for that play. I think I must have +almost fancied myself that poor gardener’s son, who dared to worship the +brightest creature that ever crossed his pathway, and in an evil hour +told her of his madness. Ah, forgive me, Miss Hillary; do not hate or +despise me for what I said just now; let it pass like the play in which +we acted to-night. And you, Julia--Miss Desmond, I am not too proud to +ask your forgiveness for the wrong I have done you. I have been very +guilty, and I accept your reproaches in all their bitterness. But when I +promised to be your true and faithful husband, I only made a promise +that I am still prepared to fulfil. You will at least do me the justice +to remember that I did not profess any warmer feeling than admiration +and esteem.” + +“Your justification is only a new insult, Mr. Tredethlyn,” Julia +answered, coldly. “I wish you good night.” + +Her passion had been something terrible in its suppressed vehemence some +moments before; but she was quite calm now. She swept towards the door +leading out into the corridor; but as she passed the merchant’s +daughter, she stopped, just long enough to utter one brief sentence +close in the young lady’s ear. + +“You shall suffer for this, Miss Hillary,” she said,-- + +She left the room; but Maude followed her, crying “Julia! Julia!” + +She hurried along the corridor and up the staircase, following closely +upon Miss Desmond; but when she reached that young lady’s room, the door +was shut in her face, and only one answer came to her almost piteous +pleadings for admission,-- + +“I have nothing to say to you, Miss Hillary. I only regret that I must +pass one more night in this house.” + +So Maude was obliged to go away in despair, and, meeting her maid at the +door of her own room, was informed that Mr. Hillary had been inquiring +for her, “ever so many times,” the maid said; “and I’ve been looking for +you everywhere, Miss, to know when you’d have your dress changed.” + +Yes, there was to be more changing of dresses before Maude’s work was +done. She resigned herself with a sigh to the hands of the young person +who waited upon her; and then went down-stairs, gorgeous in pink silk +and crape puffings, and with a crown of dewy rosebuds on her head, to +receive the compliments and congratulations of her father’s friends, and +to act her part in that social drama which was quite as difficult a +performance as the “Lady of Lyons.” + + +Francis Tredethlyn sat quite alone in the little dimly-lighted study at +the end of the long, rambling mansion, while Mr. Hillary’s guests +finished the evening with a little dancing, a great deal of flirting, +and a perpetual sipping of sparkling wines, in out-of-the-way corridors +and lobbies, where there were hothouse flowers and low chintz-covered +ottomans, and an air of loneliness conducive to flirtation. Francis +Tredethlyn sat alone, with Julia’s diamonds still lying at his feet, and +brooded over his position. He had outraged Maude, whom he adored. He had +injured Julia, to whom he was bound by every sentiment of honour and +good faith. No words can express the bitterness of his remorse as he sat +pondering upon what he had done. “False to my cousin Susan, false to +Julia Desmond,” he thought; “nothing but mischief has come to me since I +inherited that miserable money. I have no right to be amongst these +people. I never should have come to this house, where _her_ presence has +always seemed to turn my brain.” + +He looked down at the diamonds lying on the carpet, and smiled bitterly +as he remembered how much money they represented,--more than had been +spent on Susan Tredethlyn in all the girl’s joyless life--ten times more +than would have restored the young man’s father to solvency and comfort, +that time when his uncle refused him the loan of two hundred pounds. + +He stopped and gathered together the fallen jewels. There was a +writing-table near him, with pens, and paper, and sealing-wax, and all +necessary implements. He selected a large sheet of paper, and packed the +diamonds into a parcel. But before sealing the packet he wrote a few +lines on the margin of the paper,-- + + + “DEAR MISS DESMOND, + + “I beg you to retain the enclosed. They were given to you as an + evidence of my esteem and admiration, as well as of my gratitude + for your indulgent kindness to one so much beneath you as + myself. I implore you to forget and pardon what has happened + to-night. I am too ignorant of the world in which you live to + know what I ought to do; and I can only assure you that I am + ready to submit myself entirely to your discretion, and still + hold myself bound by every word I said in this room on the day + when you promised to be my wife. + + “Yours sincerely, + + “FRANCIS TREDETHLYN.” + + +No one but the servants knew when or how Mr. Tredethlyn left the Cedars +on that first night of the New Year; but a little before one o’clock the +next day a letter was delivered to Mr. Hillary--a letter from the +assistant-manager of a certain bank in the City, informing the merchant +that a sum of twenty thousand pounds had that morning been placed to his +credit. + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + + + + CHAPTER XVII. + + SOMETHING LIKE FRIENDSHIP. + + +Maude Hillary did not rise very early after that New Year’s +entertainment at the Cedars; painful emotions, troubles, doubts, and +perplexities, that had been unknown to her through all her previous +lifetime, had crowded suddenly upon her within the last few weeks, and +it was scarcely strange if she well-nigh fainted under the burden. She +slept for some hours on that first night of the year,--slept the +feverish, heavy slumber that waits upon trouble of mind and exhaustion +of body. The winter sun shone with a chill brightness between the +rose-coloured draperies of her window when she awoke from a painful +dream to a dim sense of actual trouble that was still more painful. She +remembered the scene of the previous night, her own desperate appeal for +help, Francis Tredethlyn’s avowal, and Julia’s indignation. She +remembered all this with a burning sense of shame, and with a tender and +pitying regret for Julia’s wrongs. + +“And he did not love her!” she thought, “when I fancied they were so +happy and united, so much what lovers ought to be; it was all false, +after all, and he had deceived her. But why? What motive could he have +for doing her so great a wrong?” + +Miss Hillary pondered upon this mystery while she dressed,--unaided this +morning, for she did not care to endure her maid’s sympathetic remarks +upon her pale face and heavy eyes; unaided, for how soon that pretty +Twickenham paradise, with all its dependencies, might pass away from +her, unsubstantial as the fairy palace in which Princess Balroubadour +floated away to Africa! Maude put on her plainest morning dress, and +went straight to Julia’s room, intending to make her peace with that +young lady, at any cost of self-humiliation. No base thought of Julia’s +obligations, no remembrance of the favours that had been heaped upon the +Irish girl in that hospitable habitation, had any place in Maude +Hillary’s mind. She thought of her friend as tenderly as she might have +thought of an only sister, and she remembered nothing except the great +wrong that had been done to Julia by the defection of her lover. The +breach between them was not to be narrowed. When Maude entered her +friend’s bedroom, she only found an empty and desolate-looking +apartment, in which open wardrobes and drawers, and a dressing-table, +cleared of all its pretty frivolities, bore witness to the angry Julia’s +departure. + +Miss Hillary’s maid came running along the corridor, while her mistress +stood amazed in Miss Desmond’s deserted chamber. + +“Oh, Miss,” cried the girl, “to think as you should get up and dress +yourself without a bit of help, while I’ve been waiting and listening +for the bell these last two hours! Miss Desmond, she have gone, Miss, +above an hour ago, and have took all her boxes in a fly to the station, +but wouldn’t have none of the servants to go with her; and Oh, Miss, she +looked as white as that toilet-cover.” + +That was all Maude could hear of her sometime friend’s abrupt departure +from that pleasant dwelling-place, in which she had enjoyed such a +luxurious home. This was all that the servants could tell their young +mistress about the splendid Julia; but in the study, where the scene of +the previous night had been enacted, Maude found a letter directed to +herself, in Miss Desmond’s handwriting. It was a very brief missive; +almost such a one as an English Elizabeth, or a Russian Catherine, might +have written. + +“For your father’s hospitality,” wrote Miss Desmond, “I shall always +remain grateful, and shall be sorry to hear of any evil that may befall +him. The debt I owe to _you_ I shall also know how to remember, and +shall wait the time and opportunity for its repayment.--J. D.” + +Maude sat for some time musing sorrowfully upon this oracular epistle. +She was not in any wise terrified by her friend’s threats; she was only +sorry for Julia’s disappointment. + +“She must have loved Francis Tredethlyn very dearly,” Miss Hillary +thought, sorrowfully, “or she would never feel his conduct so deeply. +And yet I have often fancied that she spoke of him coldly, almost +contemptuously.” + +Poor Maude Hillary’s lessons in the mysteries of every-day life had only +just begun; she had yet to learn that there are other disappointments +than those which wait upon true love, other pains and sorrows than those +which have their root in the heart; and that there are such things as +marrying and giving in marriage for the love of thirty thousand a year. + +She spent a weary day in the pleasant drawing-room, where the red glow +of a great fire illuminated as much prettiness in the way of china, and +Parian, and bronze, and ormolu, and enamel, as would have stocked a +_bric-à-brac_ shop in Wardour Street. She spent a tiresome day, that +seemed interminably long, lying on a low sofa near the fire, thinking of +her father’s troubles and Julia’s desertion. She thought also of that +cruel scene, in which she had seemed to play so contemptible a part. +What bitter humiliation it was to look back upon, now that the mad +impulse of the moment, the desperate courage that had made her snatch at +_any_ chance of help for her father, had altogether passed away! How +mean and pitiful the whole business seemed now to her calmer judgment, +looked upon in the cold light of common, sense! A borrower, a beggar +almost, a miserable suppliant to her friend’s affianced husband. What +wonder that Francis Tredethlyn had basely taken advantage of that false +position, to avow a passion whose least expression was an insult to her +on the lips of Julia Desmond’s lover? And then what wasted humiliation, +what unnecessary shame; for had not she turned upon him and upbraided +him in the next moment, forgetful of her father’s desperate need! + +Such thoughts as these were scarcely pleasant company all through that +brief January day, which seemed so long to Maude Hillary. The slow hours +crept on, and she still lay tossing restlessly on the sofa, which +offered all that upholstery can offer for the consolation of a troubled +mind. A servant brought lamps, and crept from window to window, drawing +the curtains as stealthily as a burglar would have cut a square out of +the iron door of Mr. Hillary’s plate-room. The first dinner-bell rang +out in the old-fashioned cupola upon the roof, and informed all +Twickenham that it was time for the people at the Cedars to array +themselves for the evening meal: but Maude still lay upon the sofa, +hiding her flushed face in the pillows, and trying to quiet the +throbbing in her burning head. What did it matter? The poor +inexperienced girl broke down all at once in her social comedy. She +could act the wearisome play no longer; she wanted to give up all her +share in this world, and to go to bed and lie there quietly until she +died. All the common business of life seemed unutterably loathsome to +her,--the dressing and dining, the simpering small-talk, the finery of a +grand house no longer honestly maintained. Oh, that it could all be +swept away like the vision engendered out of some troubled slumber; +giving place to a suburban cottage and a life of decent toil! + +“I have seen girls--well-bred, good-looking girls, trudging in the muddy +London streets, with music portfolios in their arms, while I have been +out shopping in my carriage,” she thought. “Oh, if I could only be like +one of these, and work for papa, and see him happy, smiling at me across +our little table, as I gave him his dinner, and not brooding as he does +now, hour after hour, hour after hour, in this grand drawing-room, with +the same settled look of trouble on his face!” + +It was not only of late that Maude had watched her father anxiously and +sadly. Very often during the year just passed, and even in the year +preceding that, the girl had been alarmed by Lionel Hillary’s moody +looks and long gloomy reveries, out of which it was his wont to rouse +himself in a mechanical kind of way when strangers were present. But the +merchant always gave the same explanation of his sombre looks. Those +headaches, those constitutional headaches, which came upon him +constantly through the fatigue and worry of business--those terrible +headaches made an excuse for everything, and Maude’s fears about her +father related solely to his health. How should she understand the +dismal diagnosis of commercial disease? How should she imagine that +there was any limit to the fairy purse of Fortunatus--any chance of a +blight in Aladdin’s orchard of jewelled fruits? + +The second dinner-bell rang, and there was no sign of the merchant’s +return. It had been a common thing lately for Lionel Hillary to keep his +cook in a fever of vexation over the hot plates and furnaces where the +viands for the diurnal banquet simmered and frizzled in their copper +receptacles. Maude felt no special alarm about her father. Why should he +hurry home to lengthen the long evening of brooding thought and care? +Why should she wish him home, when, out of all the depth of her love and +devotion, she could not conjure one word of comfort wherewith to greet +him? + +She was thinking this when the door was opened suddenly by an eager +hand, and Mr. Hillary came into the room. + +His daughter rose from the sofa, startled by the suddenness of his +entrance. It is a small action, that of opening a door, and entering a +room; but there was as great a change in Mr. Hillary’s performance of +it, as if twenty years had suddenly been lifted from his life. + +“My darling!” he cried, taking his daughter in his arms, “it is you whom +I have to thank. It was your doing, was it not?” + +“What, papa?” + +“The money--the twenty thousand pounds.” + +“Twenty thousand pounds!” + +She thought the burning pain in her head had engendered some sudden +delirium. She could not believe that this was her father’s face, lighted +by a hopeful smile, such as she had not seen upon it during the last +three years. + +“What twenty thousand pounds, papa?” + +“The sum that has been placed to my credit to-day anonymously. The bank +people refused to tell me the name of my benefactor. I look to you, +Maude, to solve the mystery. There is only one man whom I know of, rich +enough to advance such a sum of money--young enough to do it in so +Utopian a manner. There is only one man, Maude, and his name is Francis +Tredethlyn. Tell me, my dear, have I guessed rightly?” + +“You have, papa. Yes, I am sure you have. Poor fellow! and I was so +angry with him last night. It was very good of him to do this, papa.” + +“Good of him!” cried the merchant--“good of him to lend twenty thousand +pounds, without a halfpennyworth of security! Upon my word, Maude, it +_is_ good; and I can assure you it’s a kind of goodness that is very +uncommon in the City.” + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + + + + CHAPTER XVIII. + + POOR FRANCIS. + + +From the second day of the New Year things went pleasantly enough in the +Twickenham household. How could Maude do otherwise than rejoice in the +salvation of her father’s honour--to say nothing of his commercial +prosperity--even though that salvation had been obtained by a great +humiliation on her own part? She would have borne that humiliation very +willingly, and would have freely acknowledged her obligation to Francis +Tredethlyn, could she have seen Julia Desmond reconciled to her lover. +But the separation between these two, which had arisen out of the scene +on New Year’s night, was a perpetual reproach to Maude Hillary. + +She was not able to be quite happy, therefore, even though such a +terrible burden had been lifted from her,--even though she saw the dark +cloud swept away from her father’s face. Her girlish frivolity had +departed from her for ever on that terrible night in her father’s study +at Brighton; and there was a womanly softness, a pensive tenderness in +her manner now, that made her even more bewitching than of old. Her +affection for her father--always the ruling passion of her simple +mind--had been intensified by that fiery ordeal through which she had so +lately passed; and there was something very beautiful in the union which +now existed between the father and daughter. Mr. Hillary had been +surprised into confidences that made a new tie between himself and his +child. He could never again entirely withheld his secrets from that +tender friend and consoler. He could never again think of her as a +beautiful, frivolous creature, only intended to wear expensive dresses +and float about in graceful attitudes amongst the costly _bric-à-brac_ +of a fashionable drawing-room. He had learned to trust his child; and +poor Maude applied herself diligently to the study of the customs and +dealings common in that mysterious region known to her as the City. She +tried to understand her father’s position--for she was tormented by a +feverish anxiety as to the repayment of Francis Tredethlyn’s twenty +thousand pounds; but the complications of an Australian merchant’s +trade, as affected by wars, and rumours of wars, by alterations in the +rate of discount and the price of Consols, were a little beyond Miss +Hillary’s comprehension, and she was fain to give up the attempt in +despair, and to accept any statement which her father cared to make to +her respecting the altered aspect of his affairs. + +There was less company at the Cedars than usual during the bleak +early months of the year. Mr. Hillary worked very sedulously in the +City during this time, and did not care to fill his house with +frivolous young idlers or ponderous City-bred matrons and their +fashionably-educated daughters. The recklessness engendered by the +contemplation of inevitable ruin had given place to the careful +dealing of a man who has a difficult but not impossible task +allotted to him. You can scarcely expect the daughters of King +Danäus to labour very arduously in the filling of those buckets +which they _know_ will not hold water; but if the buckets are only +thin at the bottom, and _may_ possibly carry their contents safely +to the well, it is worth while to work conscientiously. + +Francis Tredethlyn’s twenty thousand pounds had done wonders for Lionel +Hillary; but the dry-rot had been for a long time at work in that +stately ship of which the merchant was captain, and the successful +navigation of the vessel, amidst all the rocks and shoals and tempests +of the commercial ocean, was by no means an easy duty. + +But Mr. Hillary was sanguine, and his daughter saw the new hopefulness +and brightness of his face, and was very nearly happy. She was not quite +happy, for Harcourt Lowther’s letters grew more despondent and +complaining by every mail. He reproached Maude Hillary for her +prosperity and her indifference; she must be indifferent, he argued, or +she would have succeeded ere this in obtaining her father’s consent to +her marriage with the penniless officer. “There are girls who will go +through fire and water for the man they love,” he wrote in an epistle +that was half filled with fierce reproaches. “I have seen the power of a +woman’s devotion; but then _that_ woman was only a poor simple creature, +and not the daughter of a millionaire. I cannot believe that you could +fail to influence your father, if you really cared to do so. If you +loved me, Maude, this business would have been settled long ago.” + +Did she love him? That was a question which she had never set herself to +answer. Had they not engaged themselves to each other in the prettiest +and most sentimental fashion, like a modern Master of Ravenswood and +Lucy Ashton? Maude took the fact of her love for granted. All the +sweetest and tenderest dreams of her life were mingled with the memory +of Harcourt Lowther. He was so superior to all the other men who had +paid her their homage; and it may be that his contemptuous bearing +towards those other men had been a part of the fascination of his +manner. He had affected that modern Edgar Ravenswood tone--that elegant +Timon of Athens-ism--which is so intensely charming in the eyes of a +very young woman, however spurious it may be. And with all this, he had +been so devoted, so delightfully exacting, so deliciously jealous! Maude +looked back to the one sentimental period of her life, and saw Harcourt +Lowther’s image radiant in all the light of her own youthful fancies. So +the worshipper in a village chapel sees some poor painted wooden figure +of a saint glorified by the glitter of tapers, the brightness of flowers +and draperies and decorations. How was she to separate the lamps and the +flowers about the shrine from the image which they adorned? How was she +to discover the paltry nature of that clay out of which the graceful +figure was fashioned? Harcourt Lowther represented to her all that was +brightest and best in her early girlhood; and sitting alone, through +long and thoughtful hours, in the empty rooms at the Cedars, Maude +Hillary brooded very sadly upon the only love-story of her life. + +She had ventured to speak of Harcourt to her father once since the +beginning of the year; but her timid pleading had been met by a cruel +repulse. + +“Understand me at once and for ever, Maude,” Lionel Hillary said, +sternly; “such a marriage as that can never be. If you were the great +heiress people think you, I might gratify this whim, as I have gratified +other fancies, foolish and extravagant in their way. But the road I am +now treading is by no means too secure under my feet, and I cannot +afford to see my only child the wife of a penniless adventurer. I want +to see you happy, Maude, but not after a sentimental girl’s notion of +happiness. I know what all those pretty theories about a suburban +cottage and poverty come to when they are put into practice. I have seen +the slipshod maid-of-all-work, and the miserable dinners, and the +Kidderminster carpets, and stale bread and rank butter, that belong to +love in a cottage. And more than this, Maude, I know that Harcourt +Lowther is the very last man to ally himself to a dowerless wife.” + +“Ah, how little you know him!” Maude murmured, softly. She thought she +knew her lover so well herself, and fancied him the most generous and +devoted of men because he had given her a few half-guinea bouquets, +purchased on credit from a confiding florist. “Ah, dear papa, how little +you know him! He is always reproaching me with my fortune, and lamenting +the gulf it has made between us. Let me tell him of your difficulties; +let me tell him that I am no longer a millionaire’s daughter, that I am +free to marry the man I love. Ah, let me tell him----” + +“Not a word, Maude,” answered Lionel Hillary--“not a word to that man, +if you have any love or respect for your father. Remember that I have +trusted you with secrets that a man seldom confides to his daughter.” + +“And your confidence shall be sacred, papa,” Miss Hillary replied, +submissively. And thus ended her intercession in favour of Harcourt +Lowther. + +She was fain to be contented, however, remembering the great trouble +which had been so near her, and which a merciful hand had lifted away. +She was fain to remember, shudderingly, the feverish horror of that +night at Brighton, and to think gratefully of Francis Tredethlyn, to +whom she owed her father’s rescue. She was grateful to him; but she +could not put entirely away from her the sense of shame left by that +scene in the study, and Julia Desmond’s passionate reproaches. She could +not forget that it was for her sake Francis Tredethlyn had helped her +father, and that the burden of a great obligation must rest upon her +shoulders until that loan of twenty thousand pounds was repaid. Poor +Maude’s unbusiness-like mind entirely ignored any such thing as interest +for Mr. Tredethlyn’s money. She only thought of the loan itself, and the +question of its repayment was perpetually in her mind. Had she not been +the suppliant, at whose suit the money had been lent? and was she not in +a manner the actual debtor? + +Things were much better in the City, her father told her; but upon two +or three occasions when she had ventured to hint her anxiety respecting +the early repayment of Francis Tredethlyn’s money, the merchant’s +answers had filled her mind with vague disquietude. There was an +indifference in Mr. Hillary’s manner that alarmed Maude’s keen sense of +right and honour. + +“Tredethlyn is too well off to want his money in any desperate hurry, my +dear,” he said; “he is not likely to become a very pressing creditor.” + +The hedgerows about Isleworth and Twickenham were green, with their +earliest buds before Francis Tredethlyn came again to the Cedars. Mr. +Hillary had called upon the young man at his hotel several times before +he succeeded in seeing him, and had only with great difficulty wrung +from him an admission of the fact that he was the anonymous lender of +the twenty thousand pounds that had saved the merchant from ruin and +disgrace. + +“My dear Tredethlyn, why should you insist upon any disguise?” Mr. +Hillary said, with a pleasant ease that not every man could have +maintained in such a position as that in which the merchant found +himself with regard to this simple-minded, country-bred Crœsus. “Is it +not enough to have been the most generous of men, without trying to +carry generosity to the verge of Quixotism? How can I doubt the identity +of my preserver? I know that Maude betrayed my necessities to you, under +the excitement of those unfortunate theatricals, and I know that loans +of twenty thousand pounds do _not_ drop from the skies. My dear fellow, +I am most heartily thankful to you for what you have done. It was a very +noble thing to do, an action that any man might be proud of doing. If I +had ever doubted your having good blood in your veins, your conduct in +this one matter would have settled my doubts. But I never did doubt it, +my dear Tredethlyn. I have recognized you from the first as a gentleman; +not by the right of an accidental thirty thousand a year, scraped out of +all manner of commercial gutters by a miserly uncle; but by virtue of +some of the best blood in the West of England.” + +And then Mr. Hillary stretched out both his hands, and shook those of +Francis Tredethlyn in his vigorous grasp; and altogether the interview +could scarcely have been more entirely satisfactory had the merchant +written a cheque for the twenty thousand pounds on the spot. Indeed, to +Francis any immediate repayment of that money would have been a grievous +mortification. Was it not delightful to him to remember that he had been +of service to _her_ father? Was not the money advanced to the merchant a +kind of link between Maude and the man who loved her so dearly and so +hopelessly,--only a very sordid, earthy link; but better than none? + +“I offended her very much that night,” Francis thought; “but perhaps she +will forgive me, and remember me kindly, when she thinks that I have +been useful to her father.” But when Mr. Hillary begged Francis to renew +his visits to Twickenham, the young man resisted those friendly +invitations as obstinately as if the Cedars had been the most obnoxious +place upon earth. He could not muster up courage to encounter Maude +Hillary after that scene in the little study. What if he had offended +too deeply for forgiveness? What if she slew him with a frozen glance +from her lovely eyes? Again and again in his lonely rides, emboldened by +the dusky twilight of the early spring evenings, he had ventured to +haunt the neighbourhood of the old brick-built mansion by the river; but +he could not bring himself to go any nearer to the shrine of his +divinity; and he made all manner of lame excuses in answer to Mr. +Hillary’s cordial invitations. + +He was only a clod; only an uneducated rustic, newly cast upon a strange +world, open to all the pleasant snares which are laid for the +simple-minded possessor of thirty thousand a year. Heaven only knows the +perils and temptations into which some young men would have fallen under +similar circumstances. It is something in Francis Tredethlyn’s favour +that his worst mistake was to fall desperately in love with Maude +Hillary, and wear his horse’s shoes out in disconsolate rides about the +twilit lanes and roads in the neighbourhood of her dwelling-place. + +And in the mean time Messrs. Kursdale and Scardon were supposed to be +busily employed in their search for the missing girl, who might or might +not have any right to another name than that of Susan Tredethlyn. Very +little came of the lawyers’ endeavours. Several advertisements had been +inserted in the “Times;” but it is to be feared that the lost and +missing advertised for in those columns are too often wanderers in a +weary region, far removed from that comfortable sphere of life in which +the morning papers are punctually delivered to enliven the +breakfast-table. No reply came to any of those mysteriously-worded +appeals to Francis Tredethlyn’s cousin which were concocted by the young +man and his legal advisers; and the image of the friendless girl grew +paler and fainter day by day in the mind of Maude Hillary’s adorer. + +At last Fortune--who will generally do anything in the world for us, if +we have patience enough to wait her own time for doing it--brought about +the result which Francis Tredethlyn had so obstinately avoided, yet so +fondly desired. Lounging against the rails one brilliant April day at +the corner opposite Apsley House, Francis saw Maude Hillary’s carriage +drive into the Park. + +Yes, there she was, with her sunny hair framed in spring blossoms and +white areophane. The young man seemed to behold the vision of an angel +in a Parisian bonnet, and half wondered if the folds of her white +burnous were not a pair of downy pinions floating away from her divine +shoulders. He grew very red and uncomfortable, and in another moment +would have yielded to the impulse that prompted him to seek refuge in +flight; but before he could do so, the carriage was close to the rails, +Maude Hillary had recognized him, and had told the coachman to stop. + +She was not offended with him, then; she forgave him, and thought of him +kindly. His heart swelled with a rapture that was almost overpowering. +Ah! _this_ was love. How different from that placid sense of affection +with which he had regarded his cousin, Susy! how much more delicious! +how infinitely more painful! + +“I have wanted so much to see you, Mr. Tredethlyn,” Maude said, after +shaking hands with her bewildered adorer; “why have you never been to +Twickenham?” + +“I--I--don’t like--I thought you were angry with me,” stammered Francis, +very awkwardly. Ah, how sad it is that the presence of those we love +best, and in whose eyes we would most desire to appear at an advantage, +should entail upon us the annihilation of anything like ease or grace of +manner! Mr. Tredethlyn felt himself becoming purple and apoplectic, +under the influence of that seraphic creature, whose image had filled +his mind unceasingly for the last six months. + +“Angry with you!” exclaimed Maude; “how should I be otherwise than +grateful to you, when I remember how good you have been to papa? Believe +me, Mr. Tredethlyn, I am not too proud to own the extent of our +obligation. I thank you most sincerely. You can never know how grateful +I am for the service you have rendered my dear father.” + +She bent her head, and the spring-flowers in her bonnet were very near +him as she said this in a low, earnest voice. But in the next moment the +memory of that uncomfortable scene in the study flashed back upon her, +and she felt that she must always be more or less in a false position +with regard to Francis Tredethlyn. She made a little effort to set +herself right before she parted from him. + +“You have seen Julia; you and she are reconciled, I hope. Mr. +Tredethlyn?” + +“No; indeed, I have never heard from her since--since I left the Cedars. +Your papa told me that she----Oh, Miss Hillary, I think it was better +that we should part. I don’t think that we had either of us ever really +cared for each other. It was better that it should end as it did.” + +“But I would give so much to find Julia, to hear where she is.” + +Francis Tredethlyn shook his head hopelessly. He had a vague idea that +he had not done his very uttermost in his search for his cousin Susan, +and he recoiled with terror from the idea of having to engage in a hunt +for Miss Desmond. + +“Good-bye, Mr. Tredethlyn; I hope that all will come right, after all; +and I hope that you will believe I am grateful for your goodness to my +father.” + +She held out her hand, and the Cornishman took it in his own with almost +as reverential a touch as if it had been some relic handed to him from +an altar. The carriage drove off immediately after this, and Francis saw +that seraphic bonnet with the spring-blossoms melt away and lose itself +among mundane bonnets. He lingered at the rails till the carriage came +back again, and still lingered after that, thinking that Miss Hillary’s +equipage would again return to Hyde-Park Corner; but after out-watching +all the loungers by the rails, and seeing the last of the carriages +leaving the Ladies’ Mile, he was fain to go home, resigned to the +obvious fact that Maude Hillary had left the Park by the Kensington +gates on her homeward route. + +He went home, but not disconsolate. Had he not seen and spoken with that +divinity before whom he was the simplest worshipper who ever bowed +before any earthly shrine? Was he not assured of her forgiveness? nay, +even of her gratitude? Her gratitude--Maude Hillary’s gratitude, in +exchange for that vile dross which he had ever held so lightly. Money +was indeed good for something, if it could buy the rapture of that +little interview across the park-rail, in which Francis had played so +very poor a part. He went home, and carried Maude Hillary’s image with +him, and walked up and down his big sitting-room in the Covent Garden +Hotel, smoking a cigar and thinking of the woman he loved: he thought of +her quite as hopelessly as ever _Claude Melnotte_ could have thought of +_Pauline_ before _Beauseant’s_ diabolical suggestions had prompted him +to his treacherous wooing. He thought of her as innocently as a +schoolboy thinks of the stage fairy-queen in a Christmas pantomime, and +no ambitious or selfish dream had any abode in his mind; only when a +brief note reached him from Lionel Hillary, renewing the old +unceremonious invitation to the Cedars, poor Francis could no longer +resist the voice of the charmer, but was fain to pack his portmanteau +and drive down to the merchant’s office, whence Mr. Hillary was to +convey him in the mail phaeton to Twickenham. She was not angry with +him, and he might bask in the sunshine of her presence! For a little +while he might enjoy the dangerous delight, and then the officer to whom +she was betrothed would come back to claim her, and there would be a +wedding at the old church by the Thames; and he, Francis, would see his +divinity radiant in bridal robes and crowned with orange-flowers before +he departed for ever into the outer darkness where she was not. + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + + + + CHAPTER XIX. + + MR. HILLARY SPEAKS HIS MIND. + + +After that meeting in Hyde Park, Francis Tredethlyn came very often to +the Cedars; so often, as to engender a vague uneasiness in Miss +Hillary’s mind. She knew that he loved her. If that sudden declaration +in the study had never occurred to reveal the fact, Maude must have been +something less than a woman had she been blind to a devotion that was +made manifest by every look and tone of her adorer. She knew that he +loved her, and that he had done battle with his love in order that she +might be happily ignorant of the pangs that tormented his simple heart. +The highly educated girl was able to read the innermost secrets of that +honest uncultivated mind, and was fain to pity Francis Tredethlyn’s +wasted suffering. Alas! had she not indeed traded upon his devotion, and +obtained her father’s safety at the expense of her own honour? + +Such thoughts as these tormented Miss Hillary perpetually now that +Francis spent so much of his life at Twickenham. She perceived with +inexpressible pain that her father encouraged the young man’s +visits,--her father, who could not surely shut his eyes to the real +state of the Cornishman’s feelings; yet who knew of her engagement to +Harcourt Lowther. She did not know that Julia Desmond had taken good +care to inform Francis of that engagement, and that the young man came +knowingly to his delicious torture. She did not know this; and all that +womanly compassion which was natural to her, that pitying tenderness +which showed itself in the injudicious relief of barefaced tramps and +vagabonds about the Twickenham lanes, and the pampering of troublesome +pet dogs and canary birds--all her womanly pity, I say, was aroused by +the thought that she was loved, and loved in vain, by an honest and +generous heart. + +Thus it came to pass that she could no longer endure the course which +events were taking, and she determined upon speaking to her father. They +had dined alone one bright June evening: they were not often thus +together now, for Mr. Hillary had fallen into his old habit of bringing +visitors from London, and the ponderous matrons and croquet-playing +young ladies inflicted a good deal of their company upon Maude. They had +dined alone, and Miss Hillary seized the opportunity of speaking to her +father upon that one subject which had so long occupied her thoughts. + +“Mr. Tredethlyn comes here very often, papa,” she said, breaking ground +very gently. + +Lionel Hillary filled his glass, retiring an it were behind the +claret-jug, from which comfortable shelter he replied to his daughter’s +remark,-- + +“Often?--yes--I suppose he does spend a good deal of his time here. I am +glad that he should do so; he is an excellent young man, a noble-hearted +young fellow--the best friend I have in the world.” + +Mr. Hillary was a long time filling that one glass of claret, and his +face was quite hidden by the crystal jug. + +“Yes, papa, he is very good; but do you think it is quite right--quite +wise to invite him so often?” + +“Right--wise?” cried Mr. Hillary; “what, in the name of all that’s +absurd, can you mean by talking of the right or wisdom of an invitation +to dinner? The young man likes to come here, and I like the young man, +and like to see him here. That is about all that can be said upon the +subject.” + +Maude was silent for some moments. It was very difficult to discuss this +question with her father, but she had grown familiar with difficulties +within the past few months, and was no longer the frivolous girl who had +known no loftier cause of anxiety than the uncertain health of her Skye +terrier. She returned to the charge presently. + +“Dear papa, I am sorry to worry you about this business,” she said, +gently, “but there are such peculiar circumstances in our acquaintance +with Mr. Tredethlyn--we are under so deep an obligation to him, and----” + +“And on that account we ought to shut our doors in his face, I suppose!” +exclaimed Mr. Hillary, with some show of impatience. “My dear Maude, +what mare’s-nest have you lighted upon?” + +“It is so difficult for me to explain myself, papa: you can never +imagine how difficult. But I think you ought to understand what I mean. +When Julia was here, Mr. Tredethlyn’s visits were quite natural, and I +was always glad to see him; but it was my application to him for the +loan of that money which resulted in the breaking of Julia’s engagement. +I cannot forget that night, papa; nothing but desperation would have +prompted me to appeal to Francis Tredethlyn; and now that we are under +this great obligation to him, I feel that we are bound to him by a kind +of duty. We have, at least, no right to deceive him.” + +“Deceive him! Who does deceive him?” + +“Willingly, no one. But he may deceive himself, papa. You force me to +speak very plainly. Upon the night on which I appealed to him for that +loan, he told me that he loved me, even though he was then engaged to +Julia. There was something in his manner that convinced me of his +sincerity, though I was shocked at the want of honour involved in such a +declaration. But now that his engagement to Julia has been broken off, +indirectly through my agency, he may think it likely that----” + +“He may think it likely that you would be wise enough to accept one of +the best fellows that ever lived for your husband. Is that what you +mean, Maude?” + +“Papa!” + +“Oh, my dear, I have no doubt you think me a cruel father, because I +venture to make such a suggestion. But surely, Maude, you cannot have +been blind to this young man’s devotion. From the very first it has been +obvious to anyone gifted with the smallest power of perception. Julia +Desmond contrived, by her consummate artifice, to inveigle the poor +fellow into a false position; but in spite even of that foolish +engagement, he has been devoted to you, Maude, from the first. I have +seen it, and have counted, Heaven knows how fully, upon a marriage +between you and him.” + +“You have done this, papa, and yet you knew all about Harcourt,” +exclaimed Maude, reproachfully. + +“I knew that you were a foolishly sentimental girl, ready to believe in +any yellow-whiskered young Admirable Crichton, who could make pretty +speeches, and criticise the newest Italian opera, or Tennyson’s last +poem. But I knew something more than this, Maude; I knew the state of my +own affairs, and that my only hope for you lay in a wealthy marriage.” + +“And you thought that I would marry for money--you could think so meanly +of me, papa!” + +“I thought that you were a sensible, high-spirited girl, and that when +you came to know the desperation of the case, you would show yourself of +the true metal--as you did that night at Brighton; as you did when you +asked Tredethlyn for the loan which saved me from ruin.” + +Lionel Hillary stretched out his hand as he spoke, and grasped that of +his daughter. In the next minute she was by his side, bending over him +and caressing him. Only lately it had begun to dawn dimly upon Maude +Hillary, that perhaps this father, whom she loved so dearly, was not the +noblest and most honourable of men: but if any such knowledge had come +to her, it had only intensified the tenderness with which, from her +earliest childhood, she had regarded that indulgent father. The +experience of sorrow had transformed and exalted her nature; and she was +able to look upon Lionel Hillary’s weaknesses with pitying regret, +rather than with any feeling of contempt or indignation. + +“Dear papa,” she said, very gravely, “you and I love each other so +dearly, that there should be no possibility of any misunderstanding +between us. I can never marry Mr. Tredethlyn; I know that he is good and +generous-minded and simple-hearted; I feel the extent of our obligation +to him, but I can never be his wife. It is for this reason that I am +fearful lest any false impression may arise in his mind. Pray, dear +papa, take this into consideration, and do not let him come here so +often--at any rate, not until you have been able to repay him his money, +not until the burden of this great obligation has been removed from us.” + +Lionel Hillary laughed aloud. + +“Not until the money has been paid! I’m afraid, in that case, Tredethlyn +will stop away from this house for a long time to come.” + +“A long time, papa! But you told me you would be able to repay the +twenty thousand pounds,” said Maude, turning very pale. + +“And I dare say I shall be able to pay the money some day. Such a loan +as that is not repaid in a few months, Maude. How should you understand +these matters? The twenty thousand pounds went to fill a yawning gulf in +my business, and it would be about as easy for me to get the same amount +of money back out of that gulf as it would for a single diver to bring +up the treasures of a sunken argosy.” + +Maude sighed wearily. It seemed as if a kind of net had been woven round +her, and that she suddenly found herself in the centre of it, unable to +move. + +“Papa,” she cried, “you don’t mean that Mr. Tredethlyn’s money is lost?” + +“Lost! No, child; but it may be a very long time before I shall be able +to pay him. If you were not so foolish as to throw away one of the +noblest hearts in Christendom--to say nothing of the fortune that goes +along with it--there would be very little need for me to worry myself +about this money.” + +“Oh, I understand, papa. If I were Mr. Tredethlyn’s wife, you would not +be obliged to pay the twenty thousand pounds,” said Maude, very slowly. + +“I should not be tormented about it as I am now. Say no more, my dear; +you don’t understand these things, and you drive me very nearly mad with +your questions about my affairs.” + +“Forgive me, papa. No, I don’t understand--I can’t understand all at +once; it seems so strange to me.” + +She bent her head and kissed her father on the forehead, and then went +quietly out of the room; leaving him alone in the still summer twilight, +with a belated wasp buzzing feebly amongst the fruit and flowers on the +table. Maude went to her own room, and sitting there in the dusk, shed +some of the bitterest tears that had ever fallen from her eyes. The +discovery of her father’s views with regard to her had humiliated her to +the very dust. The idea that Francis Tredethlyn’s loan would never be +repaid was torture to her keen sense of honour; torture which was +rendered still more poignant by the recollection of her own part in the +transaction. Would he ever be paid? Would that money, for the loan of +which--and never more than the loan--she had supplicated her friend’s +betrothed husband, would that money ever be returned to the generous +young man who had so freely lent it? Her father had said that it would +in due course; but there was something in his manner that had +neutralized the effect of his words. To Maude Hillary’s mind this debt +was a very sacred one, a debt which _must_ be repaid, and for which she +herself was responsible. Twenty thousand pounds;--all the faculties of +her brain seemed to swim in a great sea of confusion as she thought of +that terrible sum--twenty thousand pounds, which she was bound to see +duly paid; and she was no longer an heiress, to whom money was dross. +She was a penniless, helpless girl: worse off than other penniless girls +by reason of her inexperience of poverty. + +She thought of Harcourt Lowther; and his image seemed to shine upon her +across a wilderness of troubles; a bright and pleasant thing to look at, +but with no promise of help, no inspiration of hope, no pledge of +comfort in its brightness. + +“Perhaps papa is right, after all,” she thought, “and Harcourt would +scarcely care to burden himself with a penniless wife.” + +She was ashamed of this brief treason against her lover, almost as soon +as the thought had shaped itself; only in her despair it seemed to her +as if there could be no security of any happiness upon this earth. + +“I will tell Francis Tredethlyn the truth about myself,” she thought; +“he shall not be deceived as to anything in which I am concerned. He +shall know of my engagement to Harcourt.” + +Maude did not go downstairs again that night, nor did Mr. Hillary send +for her, as it was his wont to do when she was long away from him. It +may be that he scarcely cared to encounter his daughter after that +conversation in the dining-room, which had been far from pleasant to +him. He was not a father of Mr. Capulet’s class, who could order his +daughter to marry the County Paris at a few days’ notice; or in the +event of her refusal, bid her rot in the streets of Verona. But from the +very first he had been bent upon bringing about a union between Francis +and Maude, and he brooded moodily over the girl’s resolute rejection of +any such alliance. + +“What would become of her if I were to die to-morrow?” he thought; “and +what is to become of my business if I fail to secure a rich partner?” + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + + + + CHAPTER XX. + + AN EXPLANATION. + + +Francis Tredethlyn, now so frequent a visitor at the Cedars, happened to +present himself there upon the day after that on which Maude had come to +an understanding with her father. The young man rode down to Twickenham +in the afternoon, and found Miss Hillary occupied with two +croquet-playing young ladies and a croquet-playing young gentleman, +whose manners and opinions were of the same insipidly flaxen hue as +their hair and eyebrows. + +There was a tired look in Maude’s face that afternoon, which was very +perceptible to Francis Tredethlyn, although quite invisible to the +neutral-tinted croquet-players. Her eyes wandered away sometimes from +the balls and mallets, and fixed themselves, with a sad, dreamy look, +upon the sunlit river or the distant woodland. Francis saw this, and +that faithful Cornish heart grew heavy in sympathy with Miss Hillary’s +unknown trouble. There must be a little of the Newfoundland dog in the +nature of a man who can love hopelessly; a little of that superhuman +fidelity, a little of that canine endurance which has inspired so many +odious comparisons to the disparagement of the inferior animal called +man. Francis Tredethlyn’s eyes followed Miss Hillary with a dog-like +patience all this afternoon, during which he established himself in the +estimation of the flaxen-haired droppers-in as one of the vilest of +croquet-players and worst-mannered of men. But the croquet-players +departed, after taking tea out of a very ugly Queen-Anne teapot and some +old Sèvres cups and saucers, which had been bought for Miss Hillary at +the sale of a defunct collector’s goods and chattels, at Messrs. +Christie and Manson’s. Francis stayed to dinner, and dined alone with +Maude and her father, and found very little to say for himself. He was +distracted by the sight of Maude’s pale face and sadly thoughtful eyes. +How changed she was from the bright and sparkling creature whom he +remembered a few months ago in that house! How changed! What was the +secret trouble which had worked that transformation? What could it be +except Miss Hillary’s sorrow for the circumstances that divided her from +her distant lover? There could be no other cause for her unhappiness, +since her father’s commercial difficulties had been smoothed by that +twenty thousand pounds so freely advanced to him; and it never occurred +to Francis that Maude Hillary could possibly give herself any uneasiness +about that money, so lightly parted with by him; nor could he think that +any new trouble threatened the merchant’s peace, for Mr. Hillary was +specially gay and pleasant this evening. + +After dinner Maude strolled out into the garden, and down to that +delicious terrace by the river, where the big stone vases of geraniums +looked dark and grim in the twilight. She walked slowly up and down the +long esplanade with a filmy lace handkerchief tied coquettishly over her +head, and her long muslin dress sweeping and rustling after her like the +draperies of a fashionably-attired ghost. Francis Tredethlyn furtively +watched that white-robed figure in the shadowy distance as he sat at the +dinner-table with Mr. Hillary, and would fain have left his glass, +filled with the merchant’s rarest Burgundy, for a stroll by the quiet +river. Perhaps Mr. Hillary perceived this, for he presently gave the +young man his release. + +“Since you don’t drink your wine, you may as well go for a stroll in the +garden, Tredethlyn,” he said, good-naturedly. “I see Maude yonder; and +she’ll be better company for you than I am.” + +Francis was by no means slow to take this hint. But once outside the +dining-room windows, he went very slowly to the terrace on which Maude +was walking. He walked in and out among the flower-beds, making a faint +pretence of admiring nature in this twilight aspect. He stopped to +caress one of Maude’s Skye terriers. The animals were very fond of him +now that he had learned to avoid that trampling on their toes which had +been one of the earlier manifestations of his devotion to Miss Hillary. +He loitered here and there on every possible pretext, and at last +approached the fair deity in the muslin dress with very much the air of +a schoolboy, who presents himself in that awful audience-chamber wherein +a grim pedagogue is wont to pronounce terrible judgments upon youthful +offenders. + +He did not know that Miss Hillary had been expecting him all this time; +and that her special purpose was to bring him to her side upon that +solitary terrace-walk, where she could talk to him freely without fear +of eavesdroppers. He did not know that he was quite as much expected as +the schoolboy who has been summoned to the parlour, and was to receive a +sentence as terrible. + +Maude welcomed him very graciously, and for a little while they strolled +side by side, talking of the summer’s night, and the flowers, and Skye +terriers, and canary-birds, and other subjects equally commonplace and +harmless. Then they came to a stop, mechanically, as it is in the nature +of people to do when they walk by the side of a river, and looked over +the stone balustrade into the still water. And then a death-like silence +came down upon them; and Maude Hillary felt that the time had come in +which she must utter whatever she had it in her mind to say. It was +difficult to begin; but then all her duties of late had been difficult; +and upon her knees the night before, in the midst of tearful prayers and +meditations, she had resolved that there should be no more sailing under +false colours as regarded this young man. + +“Dear Mr. Tredethlyn,” she began at last, “you have been so good to my +father, so good to me--for to serve him is to render a double service to +me--you have been so kind and generous a friend, that I have grown to +think of you and trust you almost as I might if you had been my +brother.” + +Poor Francis listened to this exordium with a very despondent air. +Inexperienced as he was in the ways of the world, he was wise enough to +know that there was nothing hopeful in such an address as this. When a +young lady tells a gentleman that she can regard him as a brother, it is +the plainest possible declaration that he can never be anything else. In +this case it seemed an uncalled-for act of cruelty, for the Cornishman +had never deluded himself by any false hope. + +“I think of you almost as if you were my brother,” Maude went on, with +heartless repetition of the obnoxious word; “and I cannot help thinking, +dear Mr. Tredethlyn, that you are scarcely employing your life as wisely +or as well as you might. I don’t think you were ever intended to be an +idle man; and again, with such a fortune as yours, a man has scarcely +the right to be idle. There are so many people who may be benefited by a +rich man’s active life. Oh, forgive me if I seem to lecture you. You +will laugh at me, perhaps, and think I want to set myself up as a +strong-minded woman, a political economist, or something of that kind. +But I only venture to speak to you because I think you waste so much of +your time down here, playing billiards with the empty-headed young men +who haunt this place, and lounging in the drawing-room to hear the +frivolous talk of half-a-dozen idle women, myself among the number.” + +She spoke lightly, but she was not the less earnest in her intention; +she was only travelling gradually round to the point she wanted to +reach. + +“But I am so happy here,” cried Francis Tredethlyn. “Ah, if you knew how +I have tried to stop away--if you could only know what happiness it is +to me to come----” + +Maude Hillary interrupted him hastily. + +“Yes, I know it is a pleasant life in its way,” she said; “very pleasant +and very useless. It is a little new to you perhaps, and seems +pleasanter to you on that account. But if you knew what dreary work it +is to look back at a long summer season of operas, and concerts, and +horticultural meetings, and boat-races, and not to be able to remember +one action worthy of being recorded in all that time! I am getting very +tired of my present life, Mr. Tredethlyn. It has ceased to be pleasant +to me ever since I have known of papa’s difficulties. It is altogether +unsuited to me; for I am engaged to marry a poor man, who would bitterly +feel the burden of an expensive wife.” + +The bolt was launched, and Miss Hillary expected to see some evidence +that it had gone home to its mark. But Francis Tredethlyn made no sign. +There was just a little pause, and then he said very quietly,-- + +“Yes, I know that you are to marry a poor man; but with such a wife a +man could scarcely remain poor. I suppose it’s only an ignorant foolish +notion, but I can’t help thinking that for the sake of the woman he +loves, any man could cut his way to fortune. I can always believe in +those knights of the olden time, who used to put a badge in their +helmets, and then ride off to the wars to do all sorts of miraculous +things; and I fancy it must be the same now-a-days, somehow; and that a +man who loves truly, and is truly loved again, can achieve anything.” + +Maude was inexpressibly relieved by this speech. + +“You know of my engagement, then?” she said. + +“Yes, I have known it for a very long time.” + +“Ah, of course, Julia told you?” + +“Yes, it was Miss Desmond who told me.” + +“She had a perfect right to do so; there was no reason for any secrecy +in the matter. I am very glad that you have known of it. You are so kind +a friend that I should not like you to be ignorant of anything nearly +relating to my father or myself.” + +“It is very good of you to call me a friend,” Francis answered. It +seemed to him as if some angelic creature was stooping from her own +proper sphere to place herself for a brief interval by his side. “It is +very good of you to take any interest in my welfare; and I feel that you +are right. The life I lead is utterly idle and useless; but it shall be +so no longer. Your father has very generously offered me a grand +opportunity of turning both my time and money to account.” + +“My father? But how?” + +“He has offered me a partnership in his own house.” + +“A partnership?--a partnership in his difficulties--his liabilities?” +cried Maude, in a tone of horror. + +“Those difficulties were only temporary. The thirty thousand I advanced +have wiped out all liabilities, and your father’s business stands on a +firmer basis than ever.” + +“_Thirty_ thousand! You have lent papa thirty thousand pounds?” + +“I have not lent it, my dear Miss Hillary. I have only invested it in +your father’s business. There is no obligation in the matter, believe +me; or if there is, it is all on my side. I get a higher rate of +interest for my money than I should get elsewhere.” + +He stopped suddenly, for Maude had burst into a passion of sobs. + +“Oh, how could he do it? How could he?” she cried. “How could papa take +so mean an advantage of your generosity? I love him so dearly, that it +almost kills me to think he should be base or dishonourable. I thought +the twenty thousand pounds would soon be paid, and instead of that he +has borrowed more money of you.” + +“My dear Miss Hillary, pray, pray do not distress yourself. Believe me +you misunderstand this business altogether. It is not a loan. It is only +an equitable and friendly arrangement, quite as advantageous to me as to +your father. Upon my word of honour you do Mr. Hillary a cruel wrong +when you imagine otherwise.” + +Maude dried her tears, and listened to the voice of her consoler. She +was so anxious to think well of her father, that she must have been +something more than an ignorant, inexperienced girl, if she shut her +ears to Francis Tredethlyn’s arguments. + +Those arguments were very convincing, very specious. Maude ought, +perhaps, to have perceived that they were not the original ideas of Mr. +Tredethlyn. She ought, perhaps, to have discovered the parrot-like +nature of his discourse respecting all the grand prospects of the house +of Hillary and Co.; but she wanted to think well of her father, and +Francis Tredethlyn urged her to that conclusion. She listened to his +discourse as eagerly as if he had been the most eloquent of living +creatures. She felt a kind of tender friendship for him as he talked to +her; never before had he seemed so nearly on a level with herself. She +wanted to believe in his wisdom; she wanted to respect his sense and +judgment, because he was the defender of her father--that beloved father +against whom her own conscience had so lately arisen, a stern and +pitiless judge. + +The quiet river rippled under the summer moonlight before Maude and her +companion left the terrace; so much had Francis found to say about the +house of Hillary and Co., and the wonderful advantages that must come to +him from a partnership in that great firm. Surely his enthusiasm must +have arisen from some vague idea that even that commercial alliance +would be some kind of link between Miss Hillary and himself. He talked +very freely to-night, for Maude’s confidence had set him at his ease; +and in almost every word he uttered he naïvely revealed some new depth +in his devoted love. + +Late that night, when the Cornishman had gone away, Maude stood at her +open window, looking out at the river, and thinking of all that Francis +Tredethlyn had said to her. + +“Harcourt Lowther never loved me as this man loves me,” she thought, +sadly. “Ah, what a pity that there should be so much wasted love and +devotion in the world!” + +And then the thought of Francis Tredethlyn’s thirty thousand pounds +arose in her mind,--a terrible obligation, a heavy burden of debt; a +debt that was perhaps never to be cancelled. + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + + + + CHAPTER XXI. + + HARCOURT LOWTHER’S WELCOME. + + +Within a month from that night on which the merchant’s daughter and +Francis Tredethlyn had lingered so long together on the terrace up the +river, Maude Hillary sat at her desk in the little study, trying to +begin the most difficult letter she had ever had occasion to write. + +The letter was to be addressed to Harcourt Lowther, and the three words, +“My dear Harcourt,” were already written on the rose-tinted foreign +note-paper; but beyond those preliminary words Maude found it very +difficult to proceed. + +That which she had to tell the distant soldier, sorely tried by +inglorious idleness in a penal settlement, and inclined to resent every +stroke of ill-fortune, was by no means a pleasant thing to tell. She had +to announce to him that the promise she had made long ago in the +twilight by the river had been deliberately broken. She had to tell him +that she was the plighted wife of another man; and she was not free to +reveal to him any one of the strange circumstances that had pressed so +cruelly upon her, pushing her, little by little, into this renunciation +of her first and only love. + +It was only a very commonplace letter that Miss Hillary could write to +her discarded lover. She could only tell the old, common story, and put +in the hackneyed pleas so often heard in the court of Cupid;--her +father’s wishes: her desire to secure his happiness rather than her own; +and then a wild womanly prayer for pity: an entreaty that her lover +would believe in the existence of stronger reasons--higher motives--the +nature of which she was not free to reveal. And last of all, after many +pages of passionate supplication for pardon, with not a little violation +of the nicer laws propounded by Lindley Murray and his successors,--at +the very last there came one page blotted with tears, earnest yet +incoherent, in which Miss Hillary implored Mr. Lowther to forget her, +and to seek happiness with a happier woman. Never had she loved him so +dearly as while she wrote that last page, in which she resigned him for +ever. Surely Queen Guinevere’s diamonds must have sparkled their very +brightest just in that one angry moment in which she flung them into the +river. + +Yes, it had come to this. Maude Hillary, like a modern Iphigenia, had +sacrificed herself for the benefit of her father. The burden of that +debt which had been incurred by her agency had weighed too heavily upon +her girlish breast. Somehow or other Francis Tredethlyn must be paid; +and since he loved her so devotedly, so foolishly--since he held her as +the brightest treasure to be won by aspiring man--it was surely better +that he should take this poor recompense than go altogether unrewarded. +It may be that Maude Hillary would under no circumstances deliberately +have broken faith with her betrothed lover. But these grand crises, upon +which the fate of a lifetime may depend, are apt to come very suddenly +upon us. The great flood-tide of fate arises, and carries away the weak +creatures afloat on its resistless waters. A moment of hesitation--a few +faltering words--half doubtful, half imploring, and the thing is done. + +It had all happened on the day on which Francis Tredethlyn accepted Mr. +Hillary’s magnanimous offer, and allowed himself to be created a +sleeping partner in the Australian house. It was only natural that on +such a day Francis should dine at the Cedars; and it was only natural +that Lionel Hillary should make a little speech about the young man, +telling his daughter of the generosity of this noble-minded Cornishman, +who had been something more than a son to him--a friend, a benefactor, a +preserver. What praise could be loud enough for a man who would lend +thirty thousand pounds without security? And then this noble-minded +Cornishman, whose heart was like a great lump of tinder--only wanting +the feeblest spark to kindle it into a blaze--burst out into a +passionate declaration of his love. What was his fortune but so much +dirt, which he was only too glad to fling under the feet of Miss +Hillary? Would he not go out into the world to-morrow penniless, +barefoot, a beggar, if by so doing he could add to her happiness? He +asked a few such questions as these: and then cried out suddenly that he +was a despicable wretch, and that he was ashamed of himself for saying +all this, when he knew that Miss Hillary’s heart was given to another +man. He would go, he said; she should never again be tormented by him. +She should not be annoyed by so much as the mention of his name. After +which passionate speech Mr. Tredethlyn grasped the merchants hand, and +then made a rush towards the door. He would fain have suited the action +to the word; he wanted to go away that moment, and hide himself for ever +from Maude Hillary. But before he could reach the door Maude was by his +side, with her hands clasped about his arm her face looking upward at +his, and drowned with tears. + +“How good you are!” she cried. “Don’t go away; we cannot part from you +like this. You have been so good to my father. Ah, how can we ever +recompense so much devotion! If my esteem--my gratitude--can make you +happy, they are yours,--they have long been yours. I renounce every +other thought, every other duty. I can have no duty higher than this.” + +The last words were almost stifled on her lips, for Francis Tredethlyn +caught her to his breast as passionately as in that last scene of the +“Lady of Lyons.” + +“Maude, my love--my angel--you will renounce, for my sake--you--you--will +be my own--my wife!” he gasped, incoherently. “No--no, I cannot accept +such a sacrifice--I am not so mean, so selfish, as to----” + +But Mr. Hillary, hovering over his daughter and the generous-minded +young Cornishman, would not allow Francis to finish this sentence. + +“My dear boy!” he exclaimed,--“my darling Maude! nothing upon earth +could give me greater pleasure than this, because I know that it is for +your mutual happiness. What joy can be deeper or purer than that of a +father who knows that his child has won for herself the devoted +affection of a good man?” + +“And the thirty thousand pounds will be sunk for ever and ever in the +firm of Hillary and Co.,” the merchant may have thought at the close of +that enthusiastic address. + + +Thus it was that Maude Hillary arrived at the very point towards which +fate and her father had been pushing her for the last twelve months. +After that passionate impulse of self-sacrifice had passed away, a dull +dead feeling of pain took possession of her breast. Alone in the quiet +of her own pretty rooms; alone through the long sunny July mornings with +her books, and Berlin-wool work, and piano, she had only too much time +to consider the step she had taken; she had only too much time to think +of her broken vows, her scattered hopes. And she did think of these +things,--with cruel remorse and self-upbraiding, with bitter and +unavailing regret. + +And now Francis Tredethlyn appeared to her all at once in a new light. +Alas! he was no longer the noble-hearted friend to whom she could appeal +for help in the day of trouble. He was no longer the humble adorer, +kneeling on the lowest step of the altar, remote and submissive. He was +her affianced husband, and he had a right to her society. He had a right +to attend her in her walks and rides, to linger near the piano when she +sang, to hold perpetual skeins of Berlin-wool during those tedious +morning visits which he made now and again to the Cedars. All these +privileges were his by right; and other people gave place when he +approached Miss Hillary, and watched to see her face brighten as he drew +near her. It was not that Francis himself was in any way altered. His +adoration of his bright divinity was no less humble than of old--even +now when he knew that the goddess was to descend from her pedestal and +exchange her starry crown for the orange-blossoms of an earthly bride. +He was in no way changed; the distance between himself and Maude Hillary +was as wide as ever. He could set it before him--a palpable gulf, across +which he beheld her, a strange creature, in a strange land,--a creature +who might hold out her hand to him once in a way across the impassable +abyss, but who could never draw him near her. Alas for Francis +Tredethlyn’s loveless betrothal! that dreary distance was growing wider +every day, now that Iphigenia knew the hour of sacrifice was drawing +near. + +It had been one thing to think of Mr. Tredethlyn as a friend--a dear and +devoted friend, worthy to be regarded with an almost sisterly affection. +It was another thing to contemplate him as a future husband. All his +ignorance, his homely ways of speaking and thinking, his little +awkwardnesses and stupidities, his vacillating temperament in the matter +of spoons and forks at those elaborate Russian dinners,--all these +things pained Maude Hillary now as cruelly as they had galled Miss +Desmond’s proud spirit some six months before. And then to the faint +shivering pain of disgust was joined all the bitterness of contrast. +Never had Harcourt Lowther’s image seemed so near to this wayward girl +as it seemed now, when she was the promised wife of another man, and +tried most honestly to shut the memory of her old lover completely out +of her mind. Never had he been so near to her. His graces of manner, his +accomplishments, the light touch of his pointed fingers on the piano, +the deep organ-tone that he alone amongst amateurs could draw out of a +flute, the free outlines of his pencil, the transparency of his +water-colour sketches, the graphic humour of his pen-and-ink +caricatures; the airy wit, which never verged upon vulgarity; the fervid +eloquence, which never degenerated into rant; the trenchant satire, +which never sank to the vile level of personal spite: she thought of her +discarded lover: and all the showy attributes that had won her girlish +love arose before her in cruel contrast with the deficiencies of Francis +Tredethlyn. + +Yet all this time she was very kind to her betrothed husband. It was not +in her to be scornfully indifferent to the man whom she regarded as her +father’s friend and benefactor. She was not a woman to sacrifice herself +with an ill grace. The silent warfare went on within her breast. She +struggled and suffered, but she had always the same kind, cold smile, +the same gentle words for the man whom she had promised to marry. + +And in the meantime the hands went steadily round upon all the +clock-dials, and the inevitable hour drew very near. Busy milliners and +dressmakers, bootmakers and outfitters, came backwards and forwards from +Wigmore Street to the Cedars, and were busy and glad. Mr. Hillary’s +credit was unlimited, and it was almost as if a princess of the blood +royal had been about to marry. Francis Tredethlyn bought the lease of a +big black-looking house in a new neighbourhood near Hyde Park: and there +were negotiations pending for the purchase of an estate within a few +miles of Windsor. + +August was melting into September. Already there were bright glimpses of +red and yellow here and there among the sombre green of the woodlands. +The wedding was to take place very early in October: the guests were +bidden, the dresses of the bridesmaids were chosen, and in the still +evening Iphigenia walked alone on the terrace. She was very seldom alone +at this hour; but to-night her father had taken Francis Tredethlyn to a +club-dinner, given by a bachelor stockbroker of some eminence in Mr. +Hillary’s circle. To-night Maude was alone; and leaning upon the broad +balustrade, with her elbow resting amongst the thick ivy that crept +along the stone, she looked down at the still water--the dark melancholy +water--and thought of her past life. + +It seemed so far away from her now, left so entirely behind--all that +frivolous past. She seemed to have grown out of herself since the +knowledge of her father’s troubles had come upon her; and looking +backwards she saw a careless and happy creature, who bore no +relationship to this thoughtful woman, before whom all the future seemed +a blank and dreary country, unillumined by one glimpse of sunshine. + +She turned away from the water presently, and walked slowly up and down +the long terrace. There seemed to be a melancholy influence in the +evening stillness, the dusky shadow lying upon every object, the distant +peal of bells floating across the river from some church where the +ringers were practising; even the voices of passing boatmen and the low +monotonous splash of oars took a pensive tone, in unison with the hour +and Maude Hillary’s sad remorseful thoughts. + +She was near the end of the terrace, close to that ivy-grown old +summerhouse which had sheltered the patched and powdered beauties of +King George the Second’s Court, when she was startled by the sound of a +chain grating against stone-work, and rapid steps on the flight of +stairs leading from the terrace to the river. The young men who came to +the Cedars were very fond of making the journey by water: so there was +nothing strange in the sound of a step on the river stair. Maude turned +to meet the intruder with a sense of weariness and vexation. He would +not be likely to stay long, whoever he was; but the prospect of even ten +minutes’ idle conventional discourse jarred upon her present frame of +mind. + +She turned to meet the unwelcome visitor with a languid sigh, and saw a +man hurrying towards her in the twilight; a man in whose figure and +dress there was a careless grace, an undefinable air of distinction, +which, in Maude Hillary’s eyes, stamped him as different from all the +rest of the world. + +He came hurrying towards her. In a moment he was close to her, holding +out his arms, eager to take her to his breast. But she recoiled from +him, deadly white, and with her hands extended, motioning him back. + +“Don’t touch me,” she cried; “don’t come near me. Ah, you don’t +know--you cannot have had my letter.” + +“What letter?” cried Mr. Lowther, staring almost fiercely at the +shrinking girl. These sort of things so rapidly make themselves +understood. Harcourt Lowther saw at once that something was wrong. “What +letter?” + +“My last; the letter in which I told you that----Ah, how you will hate +and despise me! But if you could know all, Harcourt, as you never can, +you might excuse--you might forgive----” + +A torrent of sobs broke the sentence. + +“Oh, I think I understand,” said Harcourt Lowther, very quietly. “You +have thrown me over, Miss Hillary.” + +She held out her clasped hands towards him with an imploring gesture; +and then in broken sentences, in half-finished phrases, that were +rendered incoherent by her sobs, she recapitulated something of her +letter of explanation. Mr. Lowther’s face had blanched before this, and +his lower lip quivered now and then with a little spasmodic action; but +he listened very quietly to all Maude had to say. + +“I ought never to have expected anything else,” he answered, when she +had finished her piteous attempt to explain and justify her conduct +without revealing her father’s commercial secrets. “I don’t know that I +ever _did_ expect anything else,” he went on very deliberately. “What +has a penniless younger son to do among the children of Mammon? How can +the earthen pot hope to sail down the stream with the big brazen +vessels, and escape wreck and ruin? Don’t let there be any scene between +us, Miss Hillary; I hate all domestic tragedy, and I think if my heart +were breaking--and men’s hearts _have_ been known to break--I could take +things quietly. You have grown tired of our long and apparently hopeless +engagement, and you have promised to marry somebody else. It is all +perfectly natural. May I know the name of my fortunate rival?” + +“His name is Tredethlyn--Francis Tredethlyn.” + +“A Cornishman,” added Harcourt Lowther,--“a fellow who has lately come +into a great fortune?” + +“Yes. You know him, then?” + +“Intimately. I congratulate you on your choice, Miss Hillary. Francis +Tredethlyn is a most excellent fellow. I have reason to speak well of +him, for he was my servant for a year and a half out yonder in Van +Diemen’s Land.” + +“Your servant?” + +“Yes. He was really the best of fellows; and in the art of brushing a +coat or cleaning a pair of riding-boots was positively unrivalled.” + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + + + + CHAPTER XXII. + + TAKING IT QUIETLY. + + +“If you could know all, Harcourt, as you never can, you might +excuse--you might forgive----” + +Harcourt Lowther, very quick of apprehension always, especially so where +his own interests were concerned, had taken careful note of these broken +sentences uttered by Maude Hillary, and, rowing Londonwards in the +summer darkness, pondered on them long and deliberately, only arousing +himself now and then from his sombre reverie, in order to express his +profound contempt for some amateur waterman who was just saved from a +foul by the superior skill of the young officer. + +What did it mean? That was the question which Mr. Lowther set himself to +answer. + +“It means something more than the caprice of a shallow-hearted jilt,” he +thought, as he rested on his oars and lighted his cigar. “How pale she +grew at sight of me! That white, agonized look in her face was real +despair. ‘If I could know all!’ she said. All _what_? There’s a mystery +somewhere. Maude Hillary is the last woman in the world to throw over a +poor lover for the sake of a rich one. The sentimental girl, who was +ready to keep her engagement with me at the sacrifice of her father’s +fortune, would scarcely marry a clownish rustic for the sake of his +thirty thousand a year. Besides, these heiresses, who have never known +what it is to have a wish denied them, are the most romantic creatures +in creation, and cherish sublimely absurd ideas upon the sordid dross +question. No, I cannot think that Maude would be influenced by any +mercenary considerations--and yet how else----?” + +The villas and villages on the river-banks flitted past him like phantom +habitations in the dim light. The flat shores of Battersea; the dingy +roofs and chimneys of crowded Chelsea and manufacturing Lambeth; the +bridges and barges; the low-lying prison, lurking like some crouching +beast upon the swampy ground, shifted by as the oars dipped in the quiet +water, while Harcourt Lowther’s light wherry sped homeward with the +tide. But all the length of his water-journey he could find no +satisfactory answer to that question about Maude Hillary; and when he +relinquished his boat to its rightful owner at a certain landing-place +in Westminster, he was still undecided as to the meaning of those broken +phrases which had dropped from the lips of the merchant’s daughter in +the first moment of surprise and emotion. + +“I dare say it is only the old story after all,” he thought, as he +walked towards the Strand, in the purlieus of which he had taken up his +quarters. “Lionel Hillary, being as rich as Crœsus, is determined that +no poor man shall profit by his daughter’s fortune. Water runs to the +river, and Maude’s dowry will go to swell that old Cornish miser’s +savings. It’s only my usual luck. I am engaged to a beautiful woman with +a hundred thousand or so for a fortune, and I find a victorious rival in +the man who cleans my boots.” + +But Mr. Lowther had not settled the question even yet. Lying awake and +feverishly restless in his lodging in Norfolk Street, Miss Hillary’s +pale face was still before him, the sound of her imploring tones was +perpetually in his ear. + +“‘If I knew all, I might forgive, I might excuse!’ There must have been +some meaning in those words, some secret involved in them. Surely, if +her father had forced this marriage upon her, after the manner of some +tyrannical old parent in a stage-play,--surely, if that had been the +case, she would have candidly told me the truth; she would have pleaded +the best excuse a woman can have. There must be some secret reason for +this marriage, and I must be a consummate fool if I fail in getting to +the bottom of the mystery.” + +Mr. Lowther breakfasted early the next morning, and dressed himself with +his accustomed neatness before going out. He had no body-servant now +whom he could badger and worry when the world went ill with him; or that +individual would most assuredly have paid the penalty of Miss Hillary’s +broken faith. Harcourt Lowther, the younger son, was too poor to keep or +pay a valet. He had grown weary of waiting for promotion in the army, as +he had sickened of hoping for advancement at the bar, and had sold his +commission. The world was all before him now, as it had been seven years +ago, when he had first looked about him for a profession. The world was +all before him, and his one chance of fortune, the possibility of a +marriage with Maude Hillary, seemed entirely lost to him. It was +scarcely strange if his spirits sank before the dismal blankness of the +prospect which he contemplated that morning, as he loitered over his +breakfast of London eggs and lodging-house toast and coffee. + +He went out a little after twelve o’clock, hailed the first prowling +hansom he encountered in the Strand, and ordered the man to drive to a +certain street in the City, sacred to the stockbroking and money-making +interests. Here he alighted, dismissed the cab, turned into a narrow +court, still more entirely sacred to stockbroking, and entered a little +office, where there was a desk, two or three horsehair chairs, a great +many bills hanging against the wall, all relating to the stockbroking +interests, and a six-foot screen of wooden panelling, dividing the small +outer office from a larger inner office. + +Mr. Lowther walked straight to this screen, and standing on tip-toe, +looked over into the second office. + +A gentleman with sandy whiskers, a light overcoat, and a white hat, was +standing at a desk, and jotting some pencil memoranda upon the margins +of a file of documents, which he was turning over with a certain +rapidity and precision of touch peculiar to a man of business. + +“Can you spare a quarter of an hour of your valuable time from the +calculation of last year’s prices for the Fiji Island Grand Junction +Stock in order to devote it to the claims of friendship?” asked Mr. +Lowther. + +The clerks smiled as they looked up from their desks; and the gentleman +in the white hat dropped his pencil, and ran to a little wooden door in +the partition, over which Harcourt Lowther’s hat made itself visible. + +“My dear Lowther!” he exclaimed, presenting himself in the smaller +office, and stretching out both his hands towards the intruder; “this +_is_ a surprise; I thought you were at the Antipodes.” + +“Yes, that’s the way of the world,” answered Mr. Lowther, rather +peevishly; “a man is banished to some outlandish hole at the remotest +end of the universe, _ergo_ he’s never to return to the civilized half +of the globe.” + +“But it seems only yesterday when----” + +“And that’s another cruel thing a man’s friends say to him when he does +turn up in the civilized hemisphere,” interrupted Mr. Lowther. “‘It +seems only yesterday when you left us;’ that is to say, life has been so +pleasant and rapid for us, amidst all the gaieties and luxuries and +successes of the most wonderful city in the world, that we are utterly +unable to believe in the dreary months and years that you’ve had to drag +out, poor devil, in your hole on the other side of the line. That’s what +a fellow’s friends _mean_ when they talk their confounded humbug about +it’s only seeming yesterday.” + +Harcourt Lowther’s City friend was not the most brilliant or original of +men when you took him away from the stockbroking interests. He stared +blankly during Mr. Lowther’s discontented remarks upon the selfishness +of mankind. + +“Haw! that’s good. Meant no offence by allusion to yesterday; only meant +that I was jolly glad to see you, you know, and so on. But, you see, a +fellow turning up in the City when you’ve been given to understand that +he’s in Van Diemen’s Land is rather a surprise, you know. Can I do +anything for you? I’ll tell you what, old fellow; I can put you up to a +good thing in the Etruscan Loan,--panic prices,--nine percent, and +certain to turn up trumps in the long run.” + +Mr. Lowther smiled bitterly. + +“Do you suppose that I’ve any money to invest; or that if I had money, +I’m the sort of man to sink the glorious principal for the sake of some +miserable dribblings in the way of interest? No, my dear Wilderson, you +_can_ do me a good turn, but it’s in quite another direction. Just step +this way.” + +He put his hand on his friend’s shoulder, and led him to the door +leading into the court. Here, safely out of the hearing of the clerks at +work in the inner office, Mr. Lowther lowered his voice to a +confidential tone. + +“Wilderson,” he said, “I think you know Lionel Hillary, the Australian +merchant?” + +“Hillary and Co.?” exclaimed Mr. Wilderson,--“I should flatter myself I +did.” + +“I want you to tell me all about him--how he stands--how he has stood +for some time past; in short, all you know about him.” + +The stockbroker pulled his hay-coloured whiskers thoughtfully, and shook +his head. + +“These sort of things are rather difficult to _know_,” he said, “but a +man may have his thoughts about ’em.” + +“And what are your thoughts? Hang it, man, speak out. You talked just +now of being ready to serve me. You can serve me in this matter, if you +choose.” + +Mr. Wilderson shrugged his shoulders, and again pulled his whiskers in a +reflective mood. + +“Dear boy,” he said presently, “come out into the court.” + +Evidently in Mr. Wilderson’s mind the court was as some primeval forest, +wherein no listener’s ears could penetrate. + +Out in the court the stockbroker hitched his arm through that of +Harcourt Lowther, and began to discourse upon Lionel Hillary, or Hillary +and Co., as Mr. Wilderson preferred to designate him. He said a great +deal in a low, confidential voice, and Harcourt Lowther’s lower jaw fell +a little as he listened. One thing was made clear to the ex-officer, and +that was, that Lionel Hillary’s affairs had been hinted at by the +knowing ones as rather shaky; that there had been even whispers of that +awful word, “suspension:” but that somehow or other Hillary and Co. had +contrived to right themselves; and that it was supposed by the aforesaid +knowing ones that the Australian merchant had found a wealthy backer. + +“There’s fresh blood been let into his business, you may rely upon it, +dear boy,” said Mr. Wilderson. “I know that he was in Queer Street last +Christmas. Bills referred to drawer, and that sort of thing. The bankers +were beginning to get shy of his paper. I held a little of it myself, +and a deuced deal of trouble I had to plant it.” + +This and much more to hear did Harcourt Lowther seriously incline. Then +he asked Mr. Wilderson to dine with him at a certain noted establishment +in the Strand, and left the court very grave of aspect and slow of step. + +“So my lovely Maude is not a millionaire’s daughter after all,” he +thought. “And my friend Hillary has been dipping his capacious paw into +Francis Tredethlyn’s purse. I ought to have known that half these +reputed rich men are as rotten as a pear. So this is the explanation of +my simple Maude’s heroics. Poor little girl, _she_ has been the pretty +fly with which that accomplished angler, Mr. Hillary, has whipped the +stream for his big gudgeon! Any little card I may have arranged to play +for myself has been very neatly taken out of my hands; and I find my +friend provided with a needy father-in-law and an extravagant wife. +However, I dare say there’s some small part left for me to play: and +perhaps the best thing I can do is to take it quietly.” + + +Harcourt Lowther’s servant! + +The man to whom Maude Hillary was now engaged had once been the valet of +her discarded lover. This could scarcely be a pleasant thought to any +young lady early imbued with all the ordinary prejudices of society. +Miss Hillary was not a strong-minded woman; she could not console +herself with a neat aphorism from Burns to the effect that “a man’s a +man for a’ that;” and to her Harcourt Lowther’s revelation seemed +cruelly humiliating. She had heard of young women in her own position +marrying grooms, or perhaps even footmen, for love, and she had +shuddered at the very idea of their iniquity. But was it not quite as +degrading to marry a valet for money, as to elope with a groom for love? + +“He blacked Harcourt’s boots!” thought poor Maude; and it is impossible +to describe the utter despair expressed in that brief sentence. She met +her lover with a very pale face the next day, and, seating himself in +his accustomed place by her embroidery frame, Francis Tredethlyn saw +that there was something wrong. Alas! poor--Francis, he had already +learned to watch every change upon that beautiful face; already, before +the marriage vows had been spoken, all the miserable tortures of doubt +had begun to prey upon his devoted heart. She had promised to marry him, +but she had not promised to love him. He remembered that. She had given +herself to him in payment of her father’s debt. She had sacrificed +herself in accordance with the loyal instincts of her noble nature. +Francis, generous and loyal himself, could understand this, much better +than it was understood by Lionel Hillary, for whose sake the sacrifice +was made. + +There were times when the young man reproached himself for his +selfishness in accepting the supreme desire of his soul. Ought he not +rather to have wrestled with himself and let this bright young creature +go? But there were other times when Francis Tredethlyn suffered himself +to be beguiled by delicious hopes. Had not true and honest love +sometimes triumphed over circumstance? Might not the day come when Maude +Hillary would be able to return his affection, to reward his patience? + +“I can afford to be so patient,” he thought; “for it will be such +happiness to be her slave.” To-day, watching her pale face in pensive +contemplation, Francis puzzled himself vainly to guess what was amiss +with his promised wife. It was not only that she was paler than +usual,--and the brightness of her colour had faded very much of +late,--but to-day, there was a shade of coldness in her manner which was +quite new to her affianced husband, and which sent a chill to his heart, +always ready to sink under some vague apprehension where Maude Hillary +was concerned. We hold these supreme joys of life by so slender a +thread, that half our delight in them is poisoned by the dread of their +possible loss. + +“Maude,” he said by-and-by, after a few commonplace phrases, and after +he had watched her for some minutes in silence, “I am sure there is +something amiss with you to-day. You are ill--you----” + +“Oh, no, not ill. Only a little worried.” + +“Worried--but about what?” + +“I heard something about you last night, Mr. Tredethlyn,” said Miss +Hillary,--it was the first time she had called him Mr. Tredethlyn since +their engagement,--“something which you never told me yourself. Mr. +Lowther,--a friend of papa’s, who has just come home from Van Diemen’s +Land, told me--that--that--you had been----” + +“His servant! Yes, Maude, it is quite true. I was a soldier, and I was +obliged to obey orders. I was ordered to attend upon Ensign Lowther, and +I did my best to serve him well. When I enlisted in her Majesty’s +service, I had all sorts of foolish fancies about fighting and glory, +but they all dwindled down to the usual routine. No fighting, no glory, +no desperate attacks upon Indian fortresses, no scaling walls to plant +the British flag upon the enemy’s ramparts; but any amount of drill and +hard work, and a discontented fine gentleman to wait upon.” + +A flood of crimson rushed into Maude’s face as Francis said this; but +the young man’s head was drooping over the embroidery frame, and he was +trifling mechanically with the loose Berlin wool lying on Miss Hillary’s +canvas. + +“I am afraid you think it a kind of degradation to you, that _I_ should +have been a servant, Maude?” he said presently. + +“You never told me----” + +“No--I told you I had been a private in the 51st. The other business was +only a part of my duty.” + +Maude was silent for some moments after this. She sat looking dreamily +out of the window, while Francis still twisted the Berlin wools in his +strong fingers. Maude was the first to speak. + +“Was it Mr. Lowther you meant just now, when you spoke of a discontented +fine gentleman?” she asked, with some slight hesitation. + +“Yes; I never served any other master. Ensign Lowther was horribly +discontented. He was one of those men who can’t take things easily; but +I can understand a good deal of his peevish restlessness now. I can +sympathize with him now, Maude.” + +His voice grew low and tender as he said this. + +“Why?” asked Miss Hillary, rather coldly. + +“He was in love, Maude,--an unhappy attachment, as I understood, to some +lady--an heiress, I think--whose money was a hindrance to a marriage +between them.” + +From the beginning to the end of this conversation Maude Hillary’s +thoughts had been employed in debating one question--should she, or +should she not, tell her future husband that Harcourt Lowther was the +man to whom she had been previously engaged? He knew of that broken +engagement, but he did not know the name of her lover. Was it her duty +to tell him? It would be very unpleasant to do so; but then duty is so +often unpleasant. She was still silently debating this subject; the +words which she should speak were forming themselves in her mind; when +the drawing-room door was opened, and a servant announced Mr. Lowther. +Maude’s heart beat violently. Would there be a scene? Why had Harcourt +come, when he knew----? But Mr. Lowther very speedily relieved her fears +upon this subject. Nothing could be more delightful than his manner. He +was cordial to his old servant, without attempting any airs of +patronage. He could not have been more entirely at his ease with Maude, +had he been the most indifferent of first-cousins. + +Mr. Lowther was only acting up to his determination to take things +quietly. He had met Lionel Hillary in the City that morning, and had +surprised the merchant by speaking of Maude’s engagement to Francis +Tredethlyn. + +“But don’t alarm yourself, my dear Hillary,” he said with a frank smile. +“To say that I adored, and do adore, your daughter, is only to admit a +fact to which, I dare say, every male visitor at the Cedars would be +happy to testify in a round-robin. Miss Hillary is made to be +worshipped. I have only been one among a score of worshippers. If ever I +hoped to overcome your very natural prejudice against my disgusting +poverty, I have long ceased to hope it; so it was scarcely such a +death-blow to me to discover what had happened during my exile. Will you +let me renew my old relations with your household? Will you let me be +one of the moths again? I know now that the candle will burn, and that +its dangerous glare alone, and not its tender warmth, is reserved for +me, so I shall have only myself to blame if I come away with a scorched +wing.” + +Mr. Hillary’s only reply to this rather sentimental speech was a hearty +invitation to dinner. + +“I can give you your favourite Rüdesheimer with the oysters. Chablis is +a mistake, when you can get good hock. Sharp seven, remember; but you +may go earlier if you care for croquet. I dare say you’ll find +Tredethlyn there.” + +“The poor fellow is very hard hit, I suppose?” + +Mr. Hillary smiled and shrugged his shoulders. + +“I never saw such a devoted creature. Good day.” + +The merchant hurried off, and Harcourt walked slowly away, pondering as +he went. + +“A devoted creature. Yes, and there has been new blood let into the +commercial anatomy of Hillary and Co. I dare say that poor devil +Tredethlyn has been bled to a hideous extent.” + +The dinner at the Cedars went off very pleasantly. What dinner could +fail to go off tolerably well, enlivened by Harcourt Lowther, when that +gentleman cared to exercise his genius for making conversation? There +were other guests at the merchant’s round table; and after dinner people +showed an inclination to stroll out of the lamplit drawing-room on to +the dusky lawn, and down to the terrace, drawn perhaps by the magnetic +influence of the river, which _will_ be looked at. + +It happened somehow--I suppose Mr. Lowther himself managed it--that he +and Maude were left a little way behind the rest of the loiterers upon +the twilit terrace. Ah! how vividly in the memory of both arose the +picture of a time long ago, when they had stood there side by side, by +the same river, in a twilight calm like this, with the same star +glimmering faintly in a low rose-tinted western sky! In Maude’s breast +that memory awakened cruel pangs of shame and remorse! In Harcourt +Lowther’s breast there was a strangely mingled feeling of bitterness and +regret;--bitterness against the Destiny which had given him so few of +life’s brightest possessions; regret for the vanished time in which some +natural earnestness, some touch of fresh and manly feeling, had yet +lingered in his heart. + +“Poor, simple, unworldly Maude,” he thought, as he contemplated the +girl’s pale face, “what a penitent look she has! and yet if she +knew----” + +He smiled, and left the thought unfinished. Then, turning to Maude, he +said, with a little touch of melancholy solemnity, worthy of Edgar +Ravenswood himself, “Miss Hillary, let us be friends. If you can bury +the past, so can I. We may yet strew sweet flowers of friendship on the +grave of our dead love.” + +“And I really don’t want to let Francis Tredethlyn slip through my +fingers altogether,” Mr. Lowther added, mentally, as a sort of rider to +that pretty little speech. + +Maude looked at him with rather a puzzled expression. + +“You are very generous,” she faltered, embarrassed, and at a loss how to +express herself, “but--don’t you think it would be better for us--to--to +say good-bye to each other--for ever? I--I--hope you will marry some +one--worthy of you--some one who is less the slave of circumstances than +I am. I want to do my duty to Mr. Tredethlyn--and I think it is a part +of my duty to tell him of our broken engagement.” + +“My dear Miss Hillary, you would surely never do anything so foolish. +Poor Francis is the best fellow in the world, but he is just the man to +be ferociously jealous if he once got any foolish crotchet into his +head. I have lived in the same house with him, remember, and must +therefore know him better than you do. As for saying farewell for ever, +and all that kind of thing, your eternal parting reads remarkably well +in a novel, but it isn’t practicable between civilized people who belong +to the same rank of society. Georgina bids Algernon an irrevocable adieu +on Tuesday morning, and there is burning of letters and love-locks, and +weeping and wailing in Brompton Crescent; and on Wednesday evening the +same Algernon takes her down to dinner in Westbourne Terrace. We can +bury the past in as deep a grave as you like, and lay the ghost of +memory with any exorcism you please, but we can’t pledge ourselves not +to meet any day in the week in the houses of our common friends.” + +Maude was quite unable to argue with so specious a reasoner as Mr. +Lowther. She did her best to defend her position, and urged the +necessity of telling Francis Tredethlyn the whole truth. But Harcourt +overruled her objections, and in the end obtained from her a promise +that she would still remain silent as to the name of her discarded +lover. + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + + + + CHAPTER XXIII. + + TIDINGS OF SUSAN. + + +Absorbed in the conflicting tortures and delights of his bondage, +Francis Tredethlyn had thought very little of that missing cousin who +had once been so near and dear to him. Now and then, when he had been +most entirely under the spell of Maude Hillary’s fascinating presence, +the vision of a rosy rustic face, framed in a little dimity bonnet, had +arisen suddenly before him, mutely reproachful of his forgetfulness and +neglect, and he had resolved that on the very next day some new steps +should be taken in the search for Susan Tredethlyn. But then, on that +next day, there was generally some flower-show or _matinée musicale_, +some boat-race at Putney or appointment to play croquet at Twickenham; +in short, some excuse or other for devoting himself to Maude Hillary; +and poor Susan’s rustic image melted away into chaos. But Mr. Tredethlyn +was suddenly startled into recollection of his neglected duty by the +receipt of a letter from his solicitors, Messrs. Kursdale and Scardon, +asking for an early interview, and announcing that they had an important +communication to make respecting Miss Susan Tredethlyn, otherwise Miss +Susan Turner. + +An important communication. The Cornishman felt his face grow hot as he +read the letter. Susan was found, perhaps, he thought. He had never +mentioned her name to Maude Hillary, and now it might be that she would +need all the devotion of a loving protector, perhaps even the strong arm +of an avenger, at a time when his every thought was absorbed by his +approaching marriage. The young man did not wait for any ceremonious +appointment, but hurried off at once to Gray’s Inn, and presented +himself before Mr. Kursdale, the senior partner. + +In the quiet office Francis Tredethlyn’s hot eagerness tamed down a +little before the matter-of-fact manner of the solicitor. There was a +sober tranquillity in the aspect of the man and of the place, which +seemed to have a singularly soothing effect upon all human emotion. The +sober little clock ticking on the grey stone mantel-piece--a skeleton +clock, exhibiting its entire anatomy to the public eye, and superior to +all meretricious adornment--seemed to be perpetually ticking out in the +stillness: + +“Let me advise you to take it easily; let me recommend you to take it +quietly: whatever the Law can do for you will be done for you here; but +it must be done in the Law’s own way, which is very slow, and very +complicated, and rather trying to human patience.” + +Mr. Kursdale received Francis with calm cordiality, and after a few +stately compliments proceeded at once to business. + +“You will remember that my opinion, and that of my partner--for I +availed myself of his judgment in the matter,--you will, no doubt, +recollect, that after considerable study of the manuscript or journal +which you confided to me, I came to the conclusion that the writer of +that journal had contemplated imposing upon your cousin’s simplicity by +a mock marriage, a sham ceremonial, performed before some person falsely +representing himself to be a district registrar. This opinion was really +forced upon me by the wording of the diary. Look at the diary in what +light I would,--and I assure you I weighed the matter most carefully,--I +could not see my way to any other conclusion.” + +“I understand,” answered Francis. “I knew the man was a scoundrel. I +made that out, somehow or other, from his journal. I knew he meant +mischief and treachery upon little Susy; but I couldn’t make out _what_ +treachery till you opened my eyes to the truth.” + +“But suppose that, after all my care, I was too hasty in forming a +conclusion. Suppose that we have been mistaken, Mr. Tredethlyn?” + +“How do you mean, sir?” + +“Some days since, I happened to open a drawer which had been unopened +for a long time, and hidden under a lot of other documents I found the +diary which you entrusted to me. The sight of the manuscript reminded me +of you and your missing cousin; so I suppose it was only natural that I +should turn over the pages,--not in the hope of finding any new meaning +in them, however, for I had studied them too carefully for that. I +turned them over, and while debating the question of a mock marriage, +the thought suddenly flashed upon me that it would be at least very easy +to ascertain if any genuine ceremonial had taken place in London. +Remember, Mr. Tredethlyn, I did not for one moment imagine that there +_had_ been a real marriage, and I fully believed that the trouble I was +about to take would be wasted trouble. If I had not from the first been +firmly convinced that the writer of the diary contemplated a sham +marriage, and nothing but a sham marriage, I should, at the outset, have +done that which I only did the other day.” + +Francis Tredethlyn’s impatience was so very evident, that the lawyer, +slow as he generally was, quickened his pace a little as he went on. + +“I was determined to institute an investigation of the books of every +registrar’s office in the metropolis during the months of January, +February, and March, 1849. I entrusted a confidential clerk with this +task, and three days afterwards he brought me the result of his +investigation. On the 27th February, 1849, Robert Lesley was married to +Susan Turner, in the office of the district registrar for Marylebone. +The registrar’s name was Joseph Pepper; the names of the witnesses were +Mary Banks and Jemima Banks, of No. 7, Woolcote Villas, St. John’s +Wood.” + +“Thank God!” ejaculated Francis Tredethlyn, reverently. “Thank God, for +my little Susan’s sake, that this man was not the scoundrel we took him +for.” + +“Whether such a marriage, contracted under a false name on your cousin’s +part, and it is very possible, also under a false name on the part of +the writer of the diary,--whether such a marriage might not be open to +dispute, is another question. However, the ceremonial, so far as it +went, was genuine, and in any case there would be some little difficulty +in setting it aside.” + +“It shall not be set aside!” cried Francis, “if I have the power to +enforce it. Thank God for this, Mr. Kursdale, and thank you for the +thought, late as it came, that led to the discovery of the truth.” + +“You must remember, though, my dear Mr. Tredethlyn,” remonstrated the +solicitor, who was almost alarmed by the young man’s eagerness, “you +must bear in mind that it is just possible there may have been some +other Susan Turner and some other Robert Lesley married in the month of +February, 1849, and that this registration may refer to them.” + +“I am not afraid of that,” Francis answered, decisively. “No, the man +meant to be a scoundrel, I dare say; but my little Susy’s artless +confidence touched his heart at the very last, perhaps, and he _could_ +not be such a villain as to deceive her. Rely upon it, Mr. Kursdale, the +marriage was a genuine marriage, and I shall live to see my cousin +righted, and to divide my uncle Oliver’s money with her.” + +Mr. Kursdale stared at his client in blank amazement. + +“You would--do that?” he asked, after a pause. + +“Of course I would. Poor little ill-used darling! The money was hers, +every penny of it, by right. I--I meant at first to have restored it all +to her; but new claims have arisen for me, and I can only give her half +the fortune that should have been her own.” + +The solicitor stifled a groan. + +“And now how am I to find Susy?” asked Francis. “This registration +business gives us a new clue, doesn’t it?” + +“Unquestionably. We can, at any rate, hope to find the two witnesses, +Mary and Jemima Banks, and from them we may discover your cousin’s +present whereabouts. I’ll send a clerk to these Banks people to-morrow.” + +“Do you know I think I’d rather go and look for them myself, and at +once,” said Francis. “I’ve been very neglectful of Susy’s interests +lately, and I feel as if I ought to do something to make up for my +neglect. I’ll go myself, Mr. Kursdale, and try to find out these people. +If I fail, you must help me to find them. If I succeed, I’ll come here +to-morrow morning and tell you the result.” + +The young man wrote the address of the people in St. John’s Wood in his +pocket-book, shook hands with his legal adviser, and hurried away; he +was so eager to atone for the neglect of the past by the activity of the +present. He hailed a hansom in Holborn, and was on his way to St. John’s +Wood five minutes after he had left the lawyer’s office. He sat with his +watch open in his hand, while he made abstruse calculations as to the +time it would take him to find the females, Mary and Jemima Banks, +extort from them all the information they had to give, drive back to his +hotel, reorganize his toilet, and then make his way to Twickenham. Mr. +Tredethlyn had grown something of a dandy of late; he employed a +West-end tailor, belaboured his honest head with big ivory-backed +brushes, and bedewed his cambric handkerchief with the odorous invention +of that necromancer of the flower-garden, Monsieur Eugene Rimmel. The +big Cornishman smiled at his reflection in the glass sometimes, +wondering at his own frivolity. But it was for Maude Hillary’s sake that +he brushed his hair laboriously every day, and grew critical in the +choice of a waistcoat. He had even hired a man to wait upon him, and had +a little regiment of boot-trees in his dressing-room. + +St. John’s Wood proper is perhaps one of the most delightful suburban +retreats in which the man can make a pleasant temple for his _lares_ and +_penates_, who, yearning for the waving of green trees about his abode, +is yet obliged to live within an easy cab-drive from the City. Dear +little villas, embosomed in foliage; stately mansions, towering proudly +out of half an acre of trimly-kept garden, invite the wealthy citizen to +retirement and repose. The young lilacs and laburnums of to-day may +represent but poorly the bosky verdures of the past, but still the Wood +of St. John is a cool and pleasant oasis in the great arid desert of +London. + +But there are outskirts and dependencies of St. John that are not quite +so pleasant,--ragged wastes and shabby little terraces, that hang like +tattered edges disgracing a costly garment. These dismal streets and +dreary terraces may not belong of right to St. John, but they hang about +him, and cling to him, and shelter themselves under the grandeur of his +name, nevertheless. + +Woolcote Villas, St. John’s Wood, were very pretentious little +dwelling-places, fronted with damp stucco, and with a tendency to a +mossy greenness of aspect that was eminently dispiriting. Woolcote +Villas were of the Elizabethan order of architecture, and went off +abruptly into peaks and angles wherever a peak or an angle was possible. +How such small houses could require the massive stacks of Elizabethan +chimneys which made Woolcote Villas appear top-heavy and incongruous to +the eye of the stranger, was an enigma only to be solved by the +architect who designed those habitations; and why Woolcote Villas should +each be finished off with a stuccoed mustard-pot, popularly known as a +campanello tower, which was not Elizabethan, and not practicable for +habitation, being open to the four winds of heaven, was another problem +perpetually awaiting the same individual’s solution. + +The hansom cabman, after driving through all the intricacies of St. +John’s Wood on different false scents, came at last upon Woolcote +Villas, through the friendly offices of a milkman, and pulled up his +horse before the door of No. 7. + +Francis alighted and rang a bell,--a bell with a slack wire, which +required to be pulled a great many times before any effect was produced. +At last, however, the bell rang; and then, after a pause and another +peal, the door was opened, and a slipshod servant-maid, with a flapping +circle of dirty net hanging from the back of her disorderly head, +emerged from No. 7, Woolcote Villas, and presented herself at the little +gate before which Francis Tredethlyn was waiting. + +The young man asked if Mrs. Banks was at home. Yes, she was at home, and +Miss Banks also. Did he please to want the apartments? + +Mr. Tredethlyn told her that he had particular business with Mrs. Banks, +and that it was that lady whom he wished to see. The girl looked +disappointed. There were a good many bills in the Elizabethan windows of +Woolcote Villas, and the demands of lodgers were not equal to the supply +of furnished apartments. + +The sound of a tinkling piano, played very badly, greeted Mr. Tredethlyn +as he entered the narrow passage. The dirty maidservant opened the door +of the apartment whence the sound came, and Francis found himself in a +shabby parlour, tenanted by a young lady, who rose from the piano as he +entered, and who was very fine and yet very shabby, and a trifle dirty, +like the parlour, and like Woolcote Villas generally. The young lady +wore a greasy-looking black silk, relieved by a coquettish little apron +of Stuart plaid, and adorned by all manner of ribands and narrow +velvets, with a good deal of Mosaic jewelry in the way of hearts and +crosses, and anchors and lockets; and her hair was turned back from her +forehead, and flowed in graceful ringlets of the corkscrew order upon +her stately shoulders. She was altogether a very extensively adorned +young lady; and she gave a little start expressive of surprise and +timidity, with just a slight admixture of pleasure, as Mr. Tredethlyn +presented himself before her. Many single gentlemen had inspected the +long-vacant lodgings; but there had been no one among them so +good-looking, or so splendid of aspect, as this tall, broad-shouldered +Cornishman, revised and corrected by his West-end tailor. + +“The apartments, I suppose,” the young lady said, curtseying and +simpering. “My ma being busy, perhaps you will allow me to show them to +you? _This_ is the parlour. If the use of a sitting-room only is +required, _with_ partial board, including dinner on Sundays, the terms +would be seventeen and sixpence. Private apartments, without board, +fifteen shillings, or with full board----” + +The young lady would have proceeded further, but Francis Tredethlyn +interrupted her. + +“I beg your pardon,” he said, “I don’t require apartments; my business +is quite of a different nature. Your name is Banks, I believe?” + +The lady inclined her head graciously. Life was very dreary in Woolcote +Villas, and the advent of a good-looking stranger could scarcely be +otherwise than agreeable, even if he was not a prospective tenant. + +“Mary--or Jemima--Banks?” asked Francis. + +“I am Miss Jemima Banks,” the young lady replied, with considerable +dignity. She began to think the good-looking stranger inclined to be +presumptuous; but Francis was too preoccupied to be aware of the +intended reproof. + +“I am very glad that I have been so fortunate as to find you,” he said, +“for I believe you can give me the information I want. You were present +at a marriage before the registrar, at an office in Folthorpe Street, +Marylebone, on the 27th of February, 1849. Can you tell me where the +young lady who was married went after the ceremony? I have some right to +ask this question, for Susan Tre--Susan Turner is my first-cousin.” + +“Well, I never did!” exclaimed Miss Banks, surprised out of her +stateliness. “Poor Susan was your cousin, was she? Why, she came home +here a fortnight after her marriage.” + +“She came here?” + +“Yes, she was lodging here before that; and she and her husband went off +to Paris after the ceremony; and there was no breakfast and no nothing; +and Mr. Lesley, he was always very high and mighty-like in his ways--he +flung down a twenty-pound note upon the desk before the registrar, and +when the man said something about change, he threw up his head +scornful-like--it was a way he had if anything vexed him,--‘There’s your +money,’ he said, ‘and don’t let’s have any humbug;’ and then he dragged +his poor little wife’s hand through his arm, just nodded to me and +mother, and walked off to the cab without a word, leaving me and mother +in the registrar’s office. The registrar was full of praises of the +gentleman’s generosity, and said he’d like to tie up a half-a-dozen such +couples every week; but mother was regularly cross about that +twenty-pound note, and went on about it all the way home, saying that +Mr. Lesley had ground her down close enough about the rent for these +rooms, and needn’t go showing off his generosity to strange registers.” + +“And my cousin Susan went to Paris?” + +“Yes, but only for a fortnight, and we was to keep the apartments for +her, which we did; and at the end of a fortnight she came back, dressed +beautiful, and with all sorts of lovely things in her boxes, and she was +looking so well and so happy, and anybody would have thought she was the +luckiest woman in the world. But mother, she used to shake her head +about it, and say she never knew those secret sort of marriages to come +to any good, because when a gentleman begins by not wanting to own his +wife, he’s very apt to end by wishing he hadn’t married her. But mother +always looks at the black side of things, whether it’s taxes, or whether +it’s lodgers, or whatever it is; so I didn’t take much notice. Mrs. +Lesley seemed very happy; and Mr. Lesley, for the first week or so, he +stopped at home a great deal, and scarcely ever went out, except to take +his wife out to dine, or to a theatre, or something of that kind; and +they really seemed the happiest couple that ever was; but by-and-by Mr. +Lesley went away,--to college, his wife told me; and I shall never +forget how she cried, poor thing, the night he left her, and how lonely +she looked sitting in this room, where they’d been so happy together, +with their little oyster-suppers after the theatre, and everything that +heart could wish. She’d got some books that he’d left behind him spread +out before her on the table, and she was turning one of them over when I +went in to see her. + +“‘They’re very hard to understand, Miss Banks,’ she said; ‘but I try to +read them, because I want to be clever, and able to talk to Robert when +he comes home.’ + +“After this she was almost always reading, poor little thing, and she’d +sit in this room for days and days together; for she didn’t like to go +out alone, and mother does drive and worry so, that it wasn’t often I +could get out with her. Mr. Lesley was to be away three months, she told +me; and I’m sure that poor thing used to count the hours and minutes +almost, wishing the time to go: but when the three months was up, there +was no Mr. Lesley; he was going fishing, somewhere in Wales, with some +grand friends she told me, and wouldn’t be home till the next vacation. +I never saw any one so cut up as she was by the disappointment, though +she wouldn’t talk about it; only I could see every morning by her face, +that she’d been lying awake half the night, crying her poor eyes out.” + +“Poor girl, poor girl!” murmured Francis Tredethlyn. + +This all-absorbing passion called love was a sorrowful thing, then, he +thought, let it come to whom it would--a one-sided frenzy, a perpetual +sacrifice, a self-imposed immolation. + +“Pray tell me all you can about my cousin,” he said to Miss Banks. “You +cannot imagine how anxious I am to hear of her.” + +“I’m sure she and me was always the best of friends,” answered the fair +Jemima, with a touch of diplomacy; “and if you _did_ think of taking the +apartments, me and mother would do all in our power to make you +comfortable, if it was only on Mrs. Lesley’s account; for she was one of +the sweetest young creatures I ever knew. She stayed with us three weeks +before she was married; and I never shall forget her pretty face the day +she first came up from the country after the lodgings had been took for +her.” + +“Mr. Lesley engaged the lodgings, I suppose?” + +“No, it was Mr. Lesley’s brother.” + +“Oh, he had a brother, then?” + +“Yes, his brother was something in the law, I think--a very nice +gentleman, and almost the living image of Mr. Lesley himself.” + +“Can you give me a description of Mr. Lesley? I never saw him, and I +want very much to know what kind of man he is.” + +Miss Banks hesitated for some moments. + +“It’s so difficult to give an exact description of any one,” she said. +“Mr. Lesley was a tall, handsome-looking man, with fair hair and blue +eyes. I don’t think I could describe him any nearer than that.” + +Francis Tredethlyn sighed. There are so many tall, handsome-looking men +with fair hair and blue eyes! and it is chiefly in melodrama that people +go about the world conveniently marked with a strawberry or a coronet. + +“Answer me one question,” said Francis, eagerly, “before you tell me the +rest of my cousin’s history. Do you know where she is now?” + +Miss Banks shook her head, and sighed despondently. + +“No more than you do, sir,” she exclaimed. “It’s two years and a half +ago since I set eyes upon Mrs. Lesley, and I don’t know no more than the +dead what’s become of her since.” + +“Then she’s as much lost to me to-day as she was yesterday,” said +Francis, sadly. “But you can at least tell me all you know of my poor +cousin. It may help me to some clue by which to find her.” + +Jemima was evidently a good-natured girl. She begged Mr. Tredethlyn to +be seated, and placed herself opposite to him. + +“I’ll call mother if you like,” she said; “but I think I can tell you +more about Mrs. Lesley; mother is such a one to wander, and when one’s +anxious to know anything quick, it don’t do to have to deal with a +person whose mind’s always harping upon lodgers and their ways. Of +course everybody knows lodgers are tiresome, and nobody lets apartments +for pleasure, and nobody would pay taxes if they could help it, and +poor-rates are not expected to raise people’s spirits; but if facts are +disagreeable, that’s no reason you should have them cropping up +promiscuous in every style of conversation. Till now it used to be a +relief to me to come and sit with Mrs. Lesley of an evening, and hear +_her_ troubles, if it was only for the sake of a change.” + +“I thank you heartily for having been good to my cousin,” Francis said, +earnestly. He was thinking that he would drop into a jeweller’s shop on +his way homeward, and choose the handsomest diamond ring in the man’s +stock for Miss Jemima Banks. + +“I don’t know as I deserve any thanks, sir,” answered the girl. “I +couldn’t help taking to Mrs. Lesley, and I couldn’t help feeling for her +when I saw her so solitary and so sad. Months and months went by before +her husband came back to her; and when he did come her baby was born, +and there was the cradle in the corner just by where you’re sitting, and +she seemed as if she couldn’t make enough of the child.” + +“A child!” murmured Francis. “Mrs. Burfield never told me of the child.” + +“But Mr. Lesley, he didn’t seem so wrapped up in the baby as she did,” +continued Miss Banks; “and I used to fancy she saw it, and fretted about +it. He couldn’t take her out to dinner anywhere this time, nor yet to +the theatre, on account of the child. She asked him once to take her for +a drive somewhere in the country, and to take the child with them; but +he laughed at her, and said, ‘I don’t think there’s a pleasanter sight +in creation than an estimable mechanic in his Sunday clothes, with three +children in a wicker chaise, and a fourth in arms; but don’t you think +we may as well leave that sort of thing to the mechanic, Susy? the poor +fellow has so few chances of distinguishing himself.’ That was just the +sort of speech Mr. Lesley was always making, half laughing, half +scornful; he was always going on in a sneering way about the baby, and +her being so fond of it, and devoting herself so much to it; and +sometimes one of those nasty speeches of his would set his wife off +crying, for her health wasn’t very strong just then, and any little +thing would upset her. And then he’d look at her with a hard, cruel look +that he’d got sometimes, and throw his book into a corner, and get up +and walk out of the house, banging the door to that degree that mother +would be unnerved for the rest of the evening. Mr. Lesley took to +stopping out very late this time, and used to let himself in with a +latch-key, long after me and mother had gone to bed; but I know that +Susan used to sit up for him, and I know that he used to be angry with +her for doing it; for Woolcote Villas are slight-built, and I’ve heard +him talking to her as I lay awake overhead. He was at home for some +months this time off and on,--but he’d be away for days together,--and +when he was at home he had a tired way like, that made me feel +uncomfortable somehow to see him. He was always yawning, and smoking, +and sitting over his books, or lying asleep upon the sofa; and I’m sure +if I’d been Mrs. Lesley, I should have been very glad when he took +himself off. But, Lor’ bless your heart! poor little thing, she fretted +about his going away, just as if he’d been the kindest of husbands. He +wasn’t going back to college any more; he was going to Germany this +time. I know she wanted to go with him, poor, tender-hearted thing; and +I heard her say to him, so pitiful like, once, ‘Oh, Robert, what will +become of me when you are gone! If you would only take me!’ But he only +laughed at her, and cried out, ‘What! abandon the baby?’ So at last the +time came for him to go, and his poor wife got paler and paler every +day, till I’m sure she looked like a living corpse walking about the +house,” said Miss Banks, unconsciously paraphrasing Shelley. + +“And this man left her?” + +“Lor’, yes, what did he care for her looking white and sorrowful? He was +more wrapped up in his new portmanteaus, and travelling-bags, and +dressing-cases, and such-like, than in his wife or his child. He went +off as gay as could be, though he left Mrs. Lesley almost +broken-hearted. And he didn’t leave her too well off either, I know, +though she always paid mother to the moment; but all her pretty dresses +and bonnets that Mr. Lesley had bought her in Paris had grown shabby, +and he hadn’t bought her any new ones. He had so many expenses, she told +me; for she was always making excuses for him like, and pretending that +he was very good to her. Poor dear thing! after he was gone away the +baby was her only comfort; and I’m sure if it hadn’t been for that child +she’d have fretted herself away into the grave. Well, sir, the baby was +four months old when Mr. Lesley went away to Germany, and he was only to +be away three months at the longest, Susan told me: she was very +friendly with me, and I always called her Susan. And she used to count +the days just as she did before; and she’d say to me often how the time +was going, and her husband would soon be back. She used to write him +letters,--such long letters, all full of her talk about the baby, and +his taking notice, and growing, and such-like; but she didn’t have many +letters from him. ‘You see, Jemima, he’s always going from place to +place,’ she said; ‘and then my letters lie at the post-offices where I +direct them, and half the time he doesn’t receive them at all; so I +can’t wonder at not hearing very often from him.’ She used to be so +pleased, poor dear, when a letter did come, though I’m sure they were +short enough, for I’ve seen her open them; but, ah! when the three +months went by, and Mr. Lesley didn’t come back, how dreadfully she did +fret!--always secretly, though; for she didn’t seem to like that anybody +should know her troubles, for fear they should blame him, the brute! +‘He’s going farther north,’ she told me; ‘Germany’s such a big country, +you know, Jemima; and I’m afraid, from what Robert says, he thinks of +going beyond Germany, to St. Petersburg, perhaps. You see, it’s +necessary for him to travel in order to complete his education.’ I +couldn’t help laughing outright at this; for I thought if Mr. Lesley +wasn’t educated enough with all his books, and colleges, and crackjaw +languages, and such-like, he never would be educated. However, that was +no business of mine, and I kept my thoughts to myself. The time went by, +and still there was no news of Mr. Lesley coming home. He was always +going farther and farther north, Susan told me, when she spoke of him; +but she’d got to talk of him very little now, though I know she was +thinking of him and fretting about him all day and all night too: for +I’ve slept with her sometimes, and heard her moan in her sleep, and +speak his name, oh, so pitiful!” + +“Poor girl! poor child! she was little more than a child!” murmured +Francis Tredethlyn. + +“No more she was,” answered Miss Banks, with energy; “and him as +ill-treated her was a brute. I’m sure _I_ never thought much of him, +with his scornful, sneering ways, treating me and mother as if we were +so much dirt under his feet. As for that poor young thing, it was a +sorrowful day for her when she first set eyes upon him, fine gentleman +though he was, and above her in station, which she was always telling me +as a kind of excuse for his bad conduct. Well, sir, his letters got +fewer and fewer, and still Susan kept her troubles to herself, and only +said he was going farther north, and that he would he back before the +year was out. But the year passed, and he didn’t come back, and he’d +been away nearly ten months, and the baby was fourteen months old, when +a letter came for Susan, with St. Petersburg on the post-mark. I never +shall forget that day. It was dull, cold, March weather, with the wind +howling and moaning enough to give the liveliest person the dismals, and +Mrs. Lesley had been sitting by the window all the afternoon watching +for the postman. She was beginning to be nervous about her husband’s +health, she told me, as it was so long since she had heard from him. The +postman came at last, and I was down-stairs with mother when he came. +Mrs. Lesley ran into the passage, and took the letter herself. We heard +the parlour door shut, and then five minutes afterwards we heard a +scream and a heavy fall. Me and mother rushed up-stairs, and there was +poor Susan lying on the floor, with a letter clutched in her hand, and +the fingers clenched upon it so that neither me nor mother could loosen +them. We lifted her up and laid her on the sofa. She didn’t seem to have +fainted dead away, for she opened her eyes directly, and said, ‘Oh, why +didn’t you let me lie there till I died?’ And it was enough to pierce +the hardest heart to hear her. Mother began talking about the troubles +of the world, and asked her if there was bad news in the letter. ‘Oh, +yes!’ she cried; ‘cruel news--dreadful news!’ And then mother asked her, +Was Mr. Lesley dead? ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘dead to me! dead to me!’ Mother +fancied she meant he was really dead, and said she hoped Mrs. Lesley was +left comfortably provided for. You see, having seen a deal of trouble +herself, mother will look at things in that light. And then Susan cried +out that her trouble was one that we could never understand. I couldn’t +bear to leave her; but I got mother out of the way,--for her ways are +apt to be wearing to any one that’s in trouble,--and I stopped with +Susan all the evening. But she never spoke once; she only lay quite +quiet on the sofa, with her face turned to the wall; but I knew that she +was crying all the time; and when I took her the baby, thinking the +sight of him might comfort her, she only waved him away like with her +hand. I didn’t leave her till twelve o’clock that night; but she was +still lying on the sofa with her face turned to the wall. But just as I +was going away she stretched out her hand and said, ‘God bless you, +Jemima! it is very good of you to stop with me, but there is nothing +upon this wide earth that can give me any comfort now.’ I didn’t see her +the next morning, for she went out very early, and took the baby with +her, and she didn’t come back till late at night, and then she came back +without the baby. You might have knocked me down with a feather when I +opened the door to her and saw her come in without the child. ‘Oh, +Susan,’ I said, ‘what have you done with Robert?’--he’d been christened +Robert after his ’pa, and I’d stood godmother for him. Susan was as pale +as death, but she said very quietly, ‘I’ve put him out to nurse in the +country, Jemima. I was obliged to part from him, for I’m going away.’ I +thought all in a moment that she was going abroad to her husband, and +that her grief had been about parting with her child; but then I +remembered what she’d said the night before, about Mr. Lesley being dead +to her, and do what I would I couldn’t make it out. I’m sure I was as +much cut up at the thought of her going away as if she had been my own +sister.” + +“I wish to Heaven she had stopped with you!” exclaimed Francis +Tredethlyn. “She had few friends, poor girl, and had no need to leave +any one who felt kindly towards her.” + +“But she did leave us,” replied Miss Banks; “she paid mother every +farthing she owed her, and packed up her few little things. She would +make me take some of her pretty ribands and collars that had been bought +in Paris, and never worn out, for she didn’t care to dress herself smart +when Mr. Lesley was not at home; and then she sent for a cab, and went +away. I heard her tell the driver Shoreditch railway station, for I ran +out to the cab and kissed her the last thing, and begged her to come and +see us whenever she came back to London; and she promised that if she +lived, and things went well with her, she would. But from that day to +this we’ve never set eyes upon her.” + +And this was the end of what Miss Banks had to tell. Francis +Tredethlyn’s thoughts wandered back to Mrs. Burfield; it was to her that +Susan Tredethlyn had gone in the March of 1851. So far the girl’s +history was complete; but the grand question still remained, Where was +she now to be found? A deserted wife, a friendless and perhaps penniless +mother; what had become of this lonely, inexperienced girl between the +March of 1851 and this present autumn of 1853? + +“But surely you can give me some clue by which I may trace my cousin?” +said Francis, after a pause; “you can give me the address of some +friend, some intimate acquaintance of Mr. Lesley’s: he must have had +visitors while he lived here.” + +Jemima shook her head decisively. + +“Not one,” she answered: “except for bringing his brother home to dinner +once or twice, when he was first married, no mortal belonging to Mr. +Lesley ever darkened mother’s doors. Mother and me used to think it odd; +and of course there always are advantages in lodgers keeping much +company, which makes up for extra trouble; and the most audacious +lockers-up that ever were can’t go and lock-up under visitors’ very +noses. But we supposed, as Mr. Lesley’s marriage was a secret one, he +didn’t care to bring his friends home.” + +“But his brother came?” + +“Yes, only when they were first married; he never came after.” + +“Did you hear the brother’s address?” + +“Well, I have heard that it was in some of those law-places, the Temple, +or Gray’s Inn; but I never heard any nearer than that.” + +Mr. Tredethlyn gave a despairing sigh; he thought of Mrs. Burfield’s +description of his cousin, pale and wan, waving her little hand out of +the carriage-window as she left Coltonslough, friendless and poor. Was +it not more than likely that she had only gone away to die, and that his +search for her would end at last in the discovery of a grave? + +But might not the man, the husband who had deserted his innocent and +confiding wife, might not he be found and made to pay a heavy penalty +for his sins? Vengeance seems but a poor thing at the best, but it is at +least something; and Francis Tredethlyn felt a fierce desire for revenge +against the coldblooded destroyer of his cousin Susan’s happiness. + +He asked Miss Banks many more questions; but she could tell him no more +than she had already told him. She had never heard anything of Mr. +Lesley’s family or antecedents, directly or indirectly. She knew he went +to college, but she never remembered hearing what college. She had +fancied sometimes that Mr. Lesley’s name was an assumed one; indeed, she +was sure it was; for when his brother had come to dine at Woolcote +Villas the first time, he had inquired for Mr. Robert by some other +name. Unfortunately, that other name had entirely escaped Miss Jemima’s +recollection. + +“He caught himself up short,” she said, “as if he was vexed with himself +for having let slip that other name, and I never heard it again the +whole time Mr. and Mrs. Lesley were with us. I don’t think Susan knew +much more about her husband’s affairs than I did, for he always treated +her like a child; and even when he was kindest to her, he seemed to have +a high and mighty way with her, that would have kept any timid person +from asking questions.” + +Francis thanked Miss Banks very heartily for the trouble she had taken +to enlighten him to the extent of her power, and then bade her good +afternoon. + +“If you should meet with any one wanting apartments and board, either +partial or entire, you’ll perhaps be kind enough to bear mother in +mind,” the young lady said, as she escorted him to the door. He murmured +some polite assurance that he would neglect no opportunity of promoting +Mrs. Banks’s interest, and returned to the hansom, which had been +waiting for him during his prolonged interview with the good-natured +Jemima. + +From Woolcote Villas he drove to the office of the Marylebone registrar, +and from that official he obtained an assurance that the marriage +between Robert Lesley and Susan Turner, on the 27th of February, 1849, +was, so far as his part of the business went, as legally binding as if +the ceremony had been performed by the Archbishop of Canterbury within +the solemn precincts of Westminster Abbey. + +“If they chose to be married in false names, that was their business,” +said the registrar, “and they might find themselves bothered about it +by-and-by. But, except where there’s property, it isn’t often that a +person’s called upon to prove his marriage. I suppose, by your making +the inquiry, there _is_ property in this case?” + +Francis Tredethlyn shook his head. + +“I know no more about that than you do,” he said. + +“Well, I shan’t forget that business in a hurry,” said the registrar, +who was inclined to be communicative. “In the first place, the man was +one of your regular tip-top swells, and that’s a kind of party we don’t +often see here; and in the next place, he gave me a twenty-pound note, +which was the first windfall of that kind that ever dropped into my +pocket, and is more than likely to be the last.” + +“Can you tell me what the man was like?” + +“Tall and fair, with blue eyes and light hair; your regular swell: not +the heavy military swell,--more of a delicate womanish way with him; but +such as you may see by the dozen any afternoon in St. James’s Street or +Pall Mall.” + +This description was no clearer than that given by Jemima Banks. Francis +could scarcely walk through a London street without meeting with some +man who might be described in the same words. He left the registrar’s +office, and went back to his hotel; and, absorbed in the arduous duties +of his toilet, thought alternately of lost Susan Tredethlyn, _alias_ +Susan Lesley, and of beautiful Maude Hillary, who was so soon to be his +wife. + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + + + + CHAPTER XXIV. + + FRANCIS TREDETHLYN’S DISINTERESTED ADVISER. + + +She was so soon to be his wife! Yes, October was near at hand. Already +the woods and hills beyond the Star and Garter were bright with autumnal +tints of vivid orange and glowing crimson. The milliners and +dressmakers, the outfitters and bootmakers, were perpetually appearing +in the hall and on the staircases at the Cedars. Wicker baskets covered +with oilskin seemed continually passing in and put of Mr. Hillary’s +abode, and Maude could rarely enjoy a quiet half-hour undisturbed by a +mysterious summons, entreating her to inspect or try on some garment +newly brought home by a “young person” from town. Harcourt Lowther made +himself quite at home both at the Cedars and at Francis Tredethlyn’s +chambers during this period of preparation. Francis took very kindly to +his old master in his new capacity of friend and mentor. The habits of +the past made a link between them. The old half-friendly, +half-supercilious familiarity which had characterized Harcourt Lowther’s +treatment of his servant melted now into a playful and almost caressing +friendliness. Mr. Lowther was a thoroughly selfish man, and he found +himself called upon in this instance to sacrifice his pride in the cause +of his interest. He affected a hearty interest in Francis Tredethlyn’s +affairs, and contrived somehow, by a series of manœuvres, so subtle as +to be imperceptible, to install himself in the post of chief adviser to +the inexperienced young Cornishman. Mr. Lowther was an idle man, a very +clever man, too versatile for greatness, or even for any celebrity +beyond that species of drawing-room reputation, which women are able to +bestow on the men who are not too noble to waste a lifetime in small +accomplishments and shallow courtesies. He was very clever, very idle, +very much inclined to quarrel with the decrees of Providence; and in +Francis Tredethlyn he saw the possessor of the two things he himself +most ardently desired--a great fortune, and Maude Hillary for a wife. +But he was true to his resolution to take matters quietly; and he +assisted in the preparations for the wedding with as much outward show +of pleasure as if he had been a match-making mother rejoicing in the +happy disposal of a whole brood of daughters. The big mansion in the new +district of palatial streets and squares lying between Kensington and +Brompton was fitted and furnished under Mr. Lowther’s superintendence. +He had meetings with architects, gilders, decorators, and upholsterers; +and, with only an occasional reference to Francis, gave his orders as +freely as if the house had been his own. Sometimes, walking up and down +the whole length of the three drawing-rooms, a strange smile flickered +over his face,--a contemplative smile, which faded away in the next +moment, giving place to that perfection of fashionable indifference to +all things in heaven and earth which was his ordinary expression. + +The appointed day came at last, and poor Francis drove down to +Twickenham, looking as pale as his light waistcoat, but supported by his +friend Harcourt Lowther as best man. Once, and once only, Maude Hillary +looked at her discarded lover while she remained Maude Hillary; but +there was a world of mingled scorn and reproach in that one look. Ah, +how different his love must have been from hers! she thought. Had he +forsaken her for a wealthier bride, she would have gone far away from +the sound of his wedding bells, and the sight of his wedding finery. In +that one look she had seen that he was almost as pale as the bridegroom; +but she could not forgive him for being there. + +There was all the usual business. Autumnal flowers scattered under the +feet of the bride and bridegroom; charity children in clean pinafores +cheering in shrill treble voices as the bridal carriage drove away; and +then a breakfast, and the popping of champagne corks, and the creaming +of delicately perfumed Moselle, and a little speech-making of the +mildest character; and then a departure amidst all the confusion of a +crowded hall and portico--young-lady intimates pressing forward to +caress the bride; loud-voiced young men congratulating the bridegroom; +servants with white favours standing on tip-toe to get a peep at the +show: and then the postilions crack their whips, and the carriage rolls +away through the chill autumn evening; and Maude sees Twickenham town +spin by her in a dim glimmer of comfortable firelight, twinkling redly +in cottage windows. + +The wedding tour had been amongst the many things which Harcourt Lowther +had kindly undertaken to plan for his friend; and after a great deal of +deliberation, that gentleman had pitched upon one of the dullest and +quietest watering-places in Devonshire, as the one spot upon all this +earth best suited for Mr. Tredethlyn and his bride. + +“You don’t want the stereotyped Continental tour;--the Rhine steamers +are crowded with cockneys, who find it easier to spout ‘Childe Harold’ +than to regulate the administration of their h’s. What do you know about +the castled crag of Drachenfels, dear boy? and what do you care for all +the hackneyed sentimentality about beery old knights and battered old +castles? You don’t speak any language but your honest native tongue, and +you would be bothered out of your life before your travels were over +unless you took a courier--and then imagine seeing nature through the +eyes of a courier! No, my dear Tredethlyn! the sort of thing for you is +some quiet little watering-place,--‘an humble cot, in a tranquil spot, +with a distant view of the changing sea,’ and all that sort of thing; in +other words, a tranquil little retreat where you and Mrs. Tredethlyn may +have time to get acquainted with one another.” + +Francis was only too glad to take such pleasant advice. To be alone with +Maude, alone beside the still grey sea in the quiet autumn evenings, +seemed to him the highest bliss that earth could hold for any human +being: and poor Francis blessed his generous friend for the sound +judgment which was to secure him such happiness. + +“I dare say I should have gone scampering all over the Continent but for +you, Lowther,” he said, innocently. “Those other fellows at the Cedars +advised a tour through half Europe: ‘See plenty of life,’ they said; +‘freshen yourself up with change of scene, and pick up all the jargon +you can out of Murray, so as to be able to hold your own in society. +Everybody travels nowadays, and it doesn’t do for a fellow with lots of +tin to be behind the rest of the world.’ But I’ll take your advice, +Lowther. I wanted Maude to choose the place for our bridal trip, but she +wouldn’t; so we’ll go to the Devonshire village.” + +It is not to be supposed, of course, that Mr. Lowther had any other than +the most friendly intention when he selected Combe Western as the scene +of Francis Tredethlyn’s honeymoon; but, on the other hand, it must be +confessed that had Harcourt wished to inspire Maude with a weariness of +her husband’s society, he could have scarcely selected any place better +calculated to assist him in the carrying out of his design. At Combe +Western, the misty autumn days were unbroken by any change, save the +slow changes of the hours and the gradual darkening of the sky. There +were pleasant drives and romantic scenery to be found in the +neighbourhood of Combe Western; but Devonshire is a rainy county, and as +it rained with little intermission during the whole of that honeymoon +period, Francis Tredethlyn’s bride was compelled to find her chief +amusement in the prim lodging-house drawing-room and the society of her +husband. + +And this society was not congenial to her. He was handsome, and pleasant +to look at; manly, good-tempered, generous. No mean or unworthy +sentiment ever dropped from his lips. She respected him, and was +grateful to him; nay, even beyond this, there was a certain latent +affection for him lurking in some corner of her heart; but she was very +tired of him nevertheless. To be truly attached to a person, and +desperately weary of them, is not altogether an impossibility. Are we +not sometimes weary of ourselves, whom we yet love so dearly? When you +get tired of a book, you have nothing to do but close the volume and +restore it to its shelf. But you cannot shut up your friend when he +becomes tedious; you must needs go on, wading through page after page of +his conversation, till you yawn in his face, and arouse him to the +unpleasant conviction that he is a nuisance. + +Maude was very gratefully and affectionately disposed towards her +father’s benefactor; but she grew terribly tired of his sole +companionship during that rainy six weeks in the quiet Devonian +watering-place. If the bride and bridegroom had gone on that stereotyped +foreign tour so strongly protested against by Harcourt Lowther, Maude’s +sunny nature would speedily have asserted itself. She would have found +in the rapid changes of scene, in all the pleasant excitement of quick +travelling, plenty of subject-matter for conversation with her new +companion; there would have been always some common ground on which they +could have met, some little incident, among the hundred incidents of a +traveller’s day, which would have aroused a sympathy between them. But +thrown on their own resources at Combe Western, a Horace Walpole and a +Madame du Deffand might have exhausted their conversational powers, and +yawned drearily in each other’s faces. Maude found herself wishing for +the end of her honeymoon before the first week had drawn to its close; +and Francis, always timidly watchful of his wife’s beautiful face, felt +a chill anguish at his heart as he perceived her weariness of spirit. + +Thus it was that, when they returned to London, the husband and wife +were little nearer to each other than on their wedding-day. No pleasant +familiarity with each other’s thoughts and feelings had arisen during +that dull residence in a dull watering-place. That subtle process of +assimilation by which--except in some dismal examples--husband and wife +grow like each other in mind and feeling, had not yet begun. They were +strangers still; in spite of Maude’s esteem for her husband’s character, +in spite of Francis Tredethlyn’s blind idolatry of his wife’s +perfections; and Harcourt Lowther, who was one of the guests at their +first dinner-party, was not slow to recognize the state of the case. + +“You’ll get on admirably together by-and-by, dear boy,” he said to +Francis, as they smoked their cigars together in a luxurious little +study behind the big library, some days after the great dinner. “You’ll +get on superbly with your lovely wife, if you only play your cards +cleverly. There must be no Darby and Joan business, you know--no +sentimentalism. Lionel Hillary’s daughter is just the woman to be +disgusted by that sort of thing. It was all very well, of course, to do +the romantic during the honeymoon; but that’s all over now; your wife +will go her way, and you’ll go yours. Her friends will absorb a great +deal of her time and attention; your friends will absorb you. You’ll +have your club, your horses, your men’s parties, and perhaps the +House,--for you ought decidedly to get into Parliament,--and it will be +utterly impossible for you to spend all your mornings hanging about your +wife’s rooms, or nursing her Skye terriers, as you seem to have done +hitherto.” + +“But I like so much to be with her,” Francis remonstrated, piteously. +“It’s very friendly of you to give me these hints, and I dare say you’re +right, to some degree. I know Maude used to seem very tired at Combe +Western, and we both got into the habit of looking at our watches in a +dispiriting kind of way every quarter of an hour; but since we’ve come +to London she has quite recovered her spirits, and we are so happy +together;--you should have heard her laugh the other morning, when I +taught one of the Skyes to shoulder arms with a lead-pencil.” + +Mr. Tredethlyn laughed aloud himself at the recollection of this feat. +Harcourt Lowther shrugged his shoulders, and a frown, or the passing +shadow of a frown, darkened his handsome face. + +There are some natures in which there is a certain element of +childishness, and between such natures no desperate antagonism is ever +likely to arise. + +“We were rather dull at Combe Western,” said Mr. Tredethlyn, presently; +“but since we’ve been in London we’ve got on capitally. I’ve been +everywhere with Maude--shopping even; and I’ve written out the lists for +her parties, and been on a round of calls; and, in short, I’ve been the +happiest fellow in all creation.” + +“No doubt, my dear boy; that sort of thing’s delightful for a fortnight; +but look out for the day when the twin demons of satiety and disgust +will arise to wither all these Arcadian delights.” + +Francis pondered gravely. He had been happy since his return to London, +for he had seen Maude bright and lively, pleased with the novelty of her +position, happy in her father’s affectionate welcome, serene in the +consciousness of pure intentions, and grateful for the devotion, of +which some new evidence met her at every turn. Poor Francis had been +entirely happy; but it needed only a whisper from an elegant +Mephistopheles in modern costume to render this simple Cornishman +doubtful even of his own happiness. It might be only a sham and +delusion, after all; and Maude’s sunniest smile might be the smile of a +victim resigned to the sacrifice. + +“If you think that Maude is likely to grow tired----” Francis began, in +a very melancholy tone; but Mr. Lowther interrupted him. + +“_If_ I think! dear boy. How can I do otherwise than think what is +obvious to the dullest apprehension? Take life as other people take it, +my dear, simple-minded Tredethlyn, and you’ll find it go smoothly enough +with you. Try to live on a plan of your own, and--the rest is chaos. + + + ‘_Il n’est pas de bonheur hors des routes communes: + Qui vit à travers champs ne trouve qu’infortunes._’ + + +You had better stick to the vulgar highway, Frank, and not attempt to +set up an exceptional _ménage_. No woman will long tolerate a man tied +to her apron string. She may be flattered by his devotion in the +beginning, but she ends by despising his folly.” + +So it was that Francis Tredethlyn began life under the advice of his +friend Harcourt Lowther. After that conversation in the study the young +husband no longer intruded himself upon his wife’s leisure, or attempted +to identify himself with her pursuits. He found plenty to occupy his own +time; for Harcourt Lowther always had some new scheme for his friend’s +employment or amusement. A race, that no man living in the world could +exist without seeing; a horse to be sold at Tattersall’s; a celebrated +collection of pictures at Christie and Manson’s; a bachelor’s dinner at +a club; a review at Wimbledon;--somehow or other there was always +something to be seen, or something to be done, of a nature in which Mrs. +Tredethlyn could neither have any part nor feel any interest; and when +Francis and his friend dined alone with her, as they did very often, it +happened somehow that the conversation was always of a horsy and +masculine character, painfully wearisome to the ordinary female mind. If +Mr. Lowther had been intent on widening the natural gulf which +circumstances had set between these two people, he could scarcely have +gone to work more skilfully than he did: though it is of course to be +presumed that he was only an unconscious instrument, an involuntary +agent of mischief and ruin. + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + + + + CHAPTER XXV. + + THE ROAD TO RUIN. + + +Maude Tredethlyn took her new life very pleasantly. Her father was +happy. There had been a reaction in the City; things were going very +well for the Australian merchant; and Francis Tredethlyn was receiving +handsome interest for his thirty thousand pounds. + +He brought these tidings to his wife’s boudoir one morning early in the +new year. + +“I knew you’d be glad to hear it, Maude,” he said; “and now you see that +it _was_ a very fine thing for me to get into your father’s business. So +you need not have been uneasy about the matter, my darling.” + +Mrs. Tredethlyn lifted herself upon tiptoe, and pursed up the rosiest +lips in Christendom. A kiss, transient as the passing flutter of a +butterfly’s wing, alighted somewhere amid the thickets of the +Cornishman’s beard. + +“You dear, good old Francis! That is the pleasantest news I ever heard, +except----” + +“Except what, darling?” + +“The news that papa brought me home a year ago, when a generous friend +stepped in between him and ruin.” + +Francis Tredethlyn blushed like a schoolgirl. + +“Oh, Frank, if I should ever forget that day!” said Maude, in a low +voice, that had something of sadness in its tone. + +Was she thinking that there had been occasions since her marriage when +she _had_ almost forgotten how much she owed to the devotion of her +lover,--occasions on which some little social failure--some small +omission or commission--some petty sin against the laws of the +Belgravians and Tyburnians, had been large enough to blot out all memory +of her husband’s goodness? How can you remember that a man has a noble +heart, when, for want of the ordinary tact by which the well-bred +navigators steer their barks amid the troubled waters of society, he +blurts out some unlucky allusion which paralyzes the conversational +powers of an entire dinner-table, and brings blight and ruin down upon +an assemblage which has fairly promised to be a success? Or how can you +be expected to appreciate the generous spirit of a being whose ungainly +elbow has just tilted half-a-dozen _petites timbales de gibier_ into the +ruby-velvet lap of your most important guest? + +There were times when Maude was forgetful of everything except her +husband’s genial good-nature and unfailing devotion. There were other +times when her heart sank within her as she saw his candid face beaming +at her from the remote end of a long dinner-table, and heard his +sonorous laugh pealing loud and long above the hushed accents of +Belgravia. + +He was her slave. If she loved him--and surely it was impossible that +she could accept so much idolatry, and render no small tribute of +affection in return--her love for him was pretty much of the same +quality as that which she bestowed on her favourite Skye terrier. + +He was such a dear, devoted creature--so sensible, so obedient; and if +he did not quite stand up in a corner to beg, with a bit of bread upon +his nose, it was only because he was not required to do so. He was the +best of creatures--a big, amiable Newfoundland, ready to lie down in the +dirt to be trodden upon by his mistress’s pretty slipper, or to fly at +the throat of the foe who dared to assail her. He was a faithful slave +and defender, and it was very pleasant to know that he was always at +hand--to be patted on the head now and then when he was specially +good--to be a little neglected when his mistress was absorbed by the +agreeable distractions of society--to be blushed for, and even disowned +now and then, when his big awkward paws went ruthlessly trampling upon +some of the choicest flowers in the conventional flower-garden. + +He was her slave--her own. He loved her with an idolatrous devotion +which she could rarely think of without smiling at his exaggerated +estimate of her charms and graces. He was hers--so entirely that no +possibility of losing him ever entered into her mind. He was hers, and +we are apt to be just a little indifferent about the possessions we hold +most securely. It had become a matter of course that her husband should +scatter all the treasures of his affection at her feet, and hold himself +richly repaid by any waif or stray of tenderness she might choose to +bestow upon him. She had no uneasiness about him,--none of those sharp +twinges of jealousy--those chilling pangs of doubt--those foolish and +morbid fears, which are apt to disturb the peace of even the happiest +wife. She knew that he had loved her from the very hour of their first +meeting, against his will, in despite of his better reason. She knew +that he had been content to stand afar and worship her in utter +hopelessness; and having now rewarded his fidelity, she fancied that she +had no more to do, except to receive his idolatry, and smile upon him +now and then when it pleased her to be gracious. + +There was neither pride nor presumption in her nature; but she had lived +all her life in one narrow circle, and she could not help being +unconsciously patronizing in her treatment of the man who had taken her +Majesty’s shilling, and blacked Harcourt Lowther’s boots. + +Francis Tredethlyn might perhaps have been entirely satisfied by +brightly patronizing smiles, and gentle pattings on the head, if he had +not been blessed with a friend and adviser, always at his elbow, always +ready to step in with an intellectual lantern held gracefully aloft, and +a mocking finger pointed, when the simple Cornishman’s perception failed +to show him the uncomfortable side of the subject. + +“What a darling she is!” exclaimed Mr. Tredethlyn, as he left the house +with Harcourt Lowther, after Maude had parted from him on the staircase +all in a flutter of silk and lace, and with a feathery bush of golden +hair framed in the last Parisian absurdity in the way of bonnets. + +“Mrs. Tredethlyn is just the sort of wife for a man of the world,” +Harcourt answered, with a slight shrug of his well-shaped shoulders. +“But I can’t help fancying sometimes that you’re too good a fellow to be +thrown away upon the loveliest creature who ever isolated herself from +the rest of the human race in the remote centre of a continent of moiré +antique. Of course I can’t for a moment deny that you are the most +fortunate of created beings--but--there is always a ‘but,’ you know, +even if one has a beautiful wife and thirty thousand a year. I suppose +it is the habit of my mind to quarrel with perfection. I think if I were +a fresh-hearted, simple-minded fellow like you, Tredethlyn, I should +yearn for something nearer and dearer to me than a fashionable wife.” + +The finger of Mephistopheles, always pointing, generally contrived to +touch a sore place. Francis Tredethlyn, even when he had been happiest +in the sunlight of Maude’s smiles, had felt a vague sense of that one +bitter truth. She was no nearer to him than of old. The impassable gulf +still yawned between them, not to be bridged over by pretty little +courtesies or patronizing smiles. + +But in spite of all inward misgivings, Mr. Tredethlyn turned upon his +friend, and hotly denied the truth of that gentleman’s observations. + +Harcourt Lowther was quite resigned to a little fiery contradiction of +this kind. The arrow went home to the mark it had been shot at, and +rankled there. Such discussions were very frequent between the two men; +and however firmly Francis might argue with his friend in the daytime, +he was apt to lie awake in the dead of the night, like false cousin Amy +in the poem, when the rain was pattering on the roofs of the palatial +district, and wonder, with a dull, aching pain in his heart, whether +Harcourt Lowther was right after all; and Maude--sunny-haired, +beautiful, frivolous Maude--would never be any nearer and dearer to him +than she was now. + +In the meantime, Mr. Lowther, who sowed the seeds of the disease, was +always ready with the remedy; and the remedy was--dissipation. + +Harcourt Lowther, in whose few years of legal study had been crammed the +vicious experiences of a lifetime, was eager to perform the promise he +had made to Francis Tredethlyn some two years before, when the young man +first received the tidings of his uncle Oliver’s bequest. + +“I told you I’d show you life, dear boy,” he said; “and I mean to keep +my word. While Mrs. Tredethlyn amuses herself with the usual social +treadmill business--perpetually moving on, and never getting any +farther--you and I will see a world in which life is worth living.” + +Thus it was that Francis Tredethlyn was lured away from a home in which +he was taught to believe himself unappreciated, and introduced for the +first time within the unholy precincts of the kingdom of Bohemia. + +He entered the mysterious regions at first very reluctantly. He had the +ignorant rustic’s notion of Vice, and fancied that she would show +herself in naked hideousness; but he found her with her natural face +hidden under a plaster mask modelled from the fair countenance of +Virtue. It was something of a caricature, perhaps; for all imitations +are so apt to become exaggerations. He found that Bohemia was a kind of +Belgravia in electro-plate. There were the same dresses and properties, +only a little tarnished and faded; the same effects, always considerably +overdone; the same jargon, but louder and coarser. Life in Bohemia +seemed like a Transpontine version of a West-end drama, with cheaper +scenery and actors, and a more uproarious audience. + +This was the kingdom with whose inner mysteries Harcourt Lowther +affected a fashionable familiarity. He presented his wealthy friend to +the potentates of the kingdom, and carried him hither and thither to +worship at numerous temples, whose distinguishing features were the +flare of gas-lamps, and the popping of champagne corks, branded with the +obscurest names in the catalogue of wine-growers, and paid for at the +highest rate known in the London market. + +Perhaps in all his wanderings in the darksome wilderness which his +Mentor called London life, Francis Tredethlyn’s worst sin was the +perpetual “standing” of spurious sparkling wines, and the waste of a +good deal of money lost at unlimited loo, or blind hookey, as the case +might be. He had high animal spirits and thirty thousand a year, which +common report exaggerated into sixty thousand, and which the more +imaginative denizens of Bohemia multiplied into fabulous and +incalculable riches; so that he met with a very cordial welcome from the +magnates of the land. But the descent of Avernus, however easy it may +be, is a gradual slope, and not a precipitous mountain-side, down which +a man can be flung headlong by one push from a friendly hand. Francis +Tredethlyn yawned in the faces of the brightest stars in the Bohemian +hemisphere. His frank nature revolted against the shallow falsehoods +around and about him. The glare of the gas seemed to have no brilliancy: +the bloom upon the women’s faces was only so much vermilion and +crimson-lake bought at the perfumer’s shop, and ghastly to look at in a +sidelight. The laughter had the false ring of spurious coin; the music +was out of tune. In all this little world there was no element of +spontaneity; except perhaps in the uproarious gaiety of some boyish +country squire making a railroad journey through some fine old property +that had been kept sacred and unbroken for half-a-dozen centuries, to be +squandered on a handful of pearls to melt in Cleopatra’s wine, or +expended on the soaps and perfumeries of a modern Lamia. + +There was neither bloom nor freshness on anything except on the wings of +a few pigeons newly lured into the haunts of the vulture tribe. +Everything else was false, and withered, and faded. The smiles of the +women, the friendship of the men, were as spurious as the rhubarb +champagnes and gooseberry Moselles, and were bought and sold like them. +Mephistopheles may lead his pupil to the Brocken, but he cannot compel +the young man to enjoy himself amongst the wicked revellers; nor can he +altogether prevent the neophyte from perceiving such small +_inconvenances_ as occasional red mice hopping out of the mouths of +otherwise charming young damsels. + +Harcourt Lowther found it very hard work to keep Francis Tredethlyn +amused, night after night, in remote and unapproachable regions, whose +very names were only to be spoken in hushed accents over the fourth +bottle of Chambertin or Clos Vougeot at a bachelor’s dessert. Poor Frank +would rather have been dancing attendance upon his wife, and trampling +on the silken trains of stern matrons and dowagers at the dullest +“Wednesday,” or “Tuesday,” or “Saturday,” in all the stuccoed mansions +in which Maude’s pretty face and pleasant manners, and his own good old +Cornish name and comfortable income, had secured his footing. He was +very good-natured, and did not care how much bad wine he was called upon +to pay for. He could lose a heavy sum at blind hookey without the +faintest contraction of his black eyebrows, or the smallest depression +of his lower jaw. But he did not enjoy himself. + +He did not enjoy himself--and yet somehow or other he went again and +again to the same temples, always under convoy of his friend Harcourt, +and generally very firmly resolved that each visit should be the last. +But there was always some special reason for another visit--an +appointment with some elegant acquaintance of the vulture tribe, who +wanted his revenge at blind hookey; or a little dinner to be given at +the Star and Garter, in honour of some beautiful Free-Lance, whose chief +fascinations were the smoking of tissue-paper cigarettes and a vivacious +disregard of Lindley Murray. There was always some engagement of this +kind; and as it happened somehow that Francis Tredethlyn generally found +himself pledged to act as paymaster, it would of course have been very +unmanly to draw back. If he could have sent his friend Lowther and a +blank cheque as a substitute for his own presence, he would gladly have +done so; but his friend Lowther took care to make that impossible. So +the matter always ended by Mr. Tredethlyn finding himself, at some time +on the wrong side of midnight seated at the head of a glittering +dinner-table; with the ruins of an expensive dessert and the faces of +his guests only dimly visible athwart a thick and stifling vapour of +cigar smoke; while the clamour of strident laughter mingled with the +occasional chinking and clattering of glass, as some applauding hand +thumped its owner’s approval of the florid sentiments in an eloquent +postprandial oration. + +It is impossible to be perpetually paying for sparkling wines without +occasionally drinking a little too freely of their bubbling vintage. +Francis Tredethlyn, under the influence of unlimited Moet or Clicquot, +found the Bohemians a much pleasanter kind of people than when he +contemplated them in the cold grey morning light of sobriety. Harcourt +Lowther took care that his friend should pretty generally look at things +through a rose-tinted medium engendered of the juice of the grape; for +he found that it was by this means alone that he could retain his hold +upon his pupil. + +Go where he might, the Cornishman carried his wife’s image in his heart, +and he would have left the most brilliant assemblage in Bohemia for a +quiet _tête-à-tête_ in Maude’s boudoir; if his friend Harcourt had not +carefully impressed upon him that his entrance into that pretty little +chamber was an intrusion only tolerated by Mrs. Tredethlyn’s good +nature. + +There is no need to enter very minutely upon the details of the work +which Harcourt Lowther was doing. The art of ruining a well-disposed +young man is not a very difficult one; but Mr. Lowther had reduced the +art into a science. His great effects were not the sublime hazards of +genius, but the calculated results of a carefully studied process. So +many nights in a tainted atmosphere; so many Richmond and Greenwich +dinners; so many subtle insinuations of Maude’s indifference, must +produce such and such an effect. Mr. Lowther displayed none of that +impolitic and vulgar haste with which a meaner man might ruin his +friend. He never hurried his work by so much as a single step taken +before its time. But he never wavered, or relented, or turned aside even +for one moment from the course which he had mapped out for himself. So, +in the course of that London season, it became quite a common thing for +a street hansom to bring Mr. Tredethlyn to the gigantic stuccoed mansion +which he called his own in the early sunlight of a spring morning. There +were even times when the returning wanderer found it no easy matter to +open a door with a patent latch-key, which _would_ go meandering +hopelessly over the panel of the door, scratching all manner of +eccentric circles and parabolas on the varnish, instead of finding its +way into the key-hole. There was one awful night, on which Maude, coming +home from some very late assembly, was stumbled against by a tipsy man +who was groping his way up the great stone staircase, and found, to her +unutterable horror, that the tipsy man--who apologized profusely for +tearing half-a-dozen yards of Mechlin from the hem of her skirt, +declaring that he was “ver’ sorr’, ’pon m’ wor’; b’t y’ see, m’ dea’ +Maurr, if y’ w’ll wear dress s’ long, mussn’ be s’prise get torr t’ +piecess”--was her husband. + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + + + + CHAPTER XXVI. + + A CHILLING RECONCILIATION. + + +That unfortunate meeting on the stairs made a very deep impression upon +Maude Tredethlyn. She had never before encountered drunkenness; and it +was one of those sins which seemed to her to belong to a region of outer +darkness, in which decent people had no place. Her father had always +been as sober as an anchorite; her father’s guests were gentlemen. She +had heard, now and then, in the course of her life at the Cedars, of a +drunken gardener dismissed with ignominy from the gardens--a drunken +groom degraded from has rank in the stables. But Francis, her +husband,--that _he_ should be thick of speech and unsteady of foot under +the influence of strong drink!--it seemed almost too horrible for +belief. She lay awake in the morning sunlight, thinking of Francis +Tredethlyn’s misdemeanour. + +“And just as I fancied that I was beginning to love him!” she thought, +regretfully. Would they meet at breakfast? she wondered. And if they did +meet, what would Francis say to her? A sickly dread of that meeting took +possession of her mind. If he apologized, how was she to answer him? +Would it be possible for her to conceal her disgust? + +“Let me remember his goodness to my father,” she murmured. “Oh, can I +ever be so base as to forget that?” + +The possible meeting at the breakfast-table was very easily avoided. +Mrs. Tredethlyn had a headache, and took her strong green tea and dry +toast in the pretty little boudoir, with the pink draperies and Parian +statuettes, the satin-wood cabinets and bookcases, the Persian carpets +and polar-bear-skin rugs, the marqueterie _jardinières_, and toy +Swiss-cottage birdcages, selected by Harcourt Lowther. It was rather an +enervating little boudoir, eminently adapted for the perusal of French +novels, and the neglect of all the duties of life. Mrs. Tredethlyn +breakfasted in this room; so there was no uncomfortable meeting between +the husband and wife. Francis left the house before noon, in order to +keep an appointment with his friend Mr. Lowther. They were going +together to the Doncaster spring meeting, where Bohemianism would be +rampant, and were to be away for some days. Poor Francis ran into the +library, while his friend waited for him, and scribbled a hasty note to +his wife, full of penitence and self-humiliation. He gave the missive to +Mrs. Tredethlyn’s maid at the foot of the stairs, while Harcourt was +standing in a little room opening out of the hall, arranging the strap +of a race-glass across his light overcoat. Mr. Tredethlyn went back to +the library in search of a railway rug which he had flung off his arm +when he sat down to write the letter; and during his brief absence there +was a flutter of silk in the hall, and a little conference between Mr. +Lowther and the Abigail. + +Half an hour afterwards, when the two men were walking up and down the +platform at the King’s Cross station, with cigars in their mouths, Mr. +Lowther handed his friend the identical letter which Francis had +entrusted to his wife’s maid. + +“You can post that to its address if you like, dear boy; but I think _I_ +should light my cigar with it. The seal is unbroken, you see; but I +fancy I can make a tolerable guess at the contents of the epistle. Dear +old Frank, if you want to preserve the merest semblance of manhood, the +poorest remnant of independence, never beg your wife’s pardon.” + +Of course Mr. Tredethlyn was very angry. Harcourt Lowther was prepared +to encounter a given amount of resistance. The wave may lash and beat +itself against the quiet breast of the rock; and the rock, secure in its +supremacy, has only to stand still until that poor worn-out wave crawls +meekly to the stony bosom, a conquered and a placid thing. Mr. Lowther +had his work to do, and he took his own time about doing it. The +apologetic little epistle was _not_ sent to Mrs. Tredethlyn; and at an +uproarious after-dinner assemblage at the Reindeer, Francis abandoned +such frivolous stuff as sparkling Moselles and Burgundies for fierce +libations of brandy punch. He made a tremendous book for all manner of +events, always under the advice of his friend; indeed, its pages +contained many rather heavy engagements with Mr. Lowther himself, who +affected extreme simplicity amongst the magnates of the turf, but who +was nevertheless eminently respected by those gentlemen, as being of the +deep and dangerous class--a dark horse, secretly exercised on lonely +commons at weird hours of the early morning, and winning with a rush +when he was least expected to do so. + + +While Francis was seeing life through the medium provided for him by his +experienced adviser, Maude enjoyed herself after her own fashion. She +had been very happy at Twickenham; but she had never until now been +entirely her own mistress, with unlimited credit and unlimited ready +money, and all the privileges of a matron. At the Cedars she had been +always more or less under her father’s direction. She had acted very +much as she pleased upon all occasions; but she had made a point of +consulting him about the smallest step in her simple life; a round of +calls, a day’s shopping, a little musical gathering after a +dinner-party, the amount of a subscription to a charity,--even the +colour of a dress. + +But now the young matron shook off even the gentle fetters which had +held the girl, and spread her pinions for a bolder flight. A much wider +world had opened itself to the merchant’s daughter since her marriage. +The story of Mr. Tredethlyn’s fortune--always multiplied by the liberal +tongue of rumour--was one of the most popular topics amongst the +denizens of the new district in which Mr. Tredethlyn’s house was +situated. None of these West-end people knew that Lionel Hillary’s +position had ever endured a dreadful crisis of uncertainty and terror. +The marriage between Maude and Francis was supposed to be one of those +sublime unions in which wealth is united to wealth--the alliance of a +Miss Rothschild with a Master Lafitte--a grand commercial combination +for the consolidation of capital. + +So Maude took her place as one of the most important novelties of the +current year. She gave great receptions in her three drawing-rooms, +whose gorgeous decorations were just a little too much like the velvet +and ormolu magnificence of a public room at a gigantic hotel. She +organized dinner-parties, and revised and corrected a _menu_, with the +_savoir faire_ of a Brillat Savarin in petticoats. Always accustomed to +a reckless expenditure, she had no idea of the necessity for some +regulation in the expenses of a large household. Left a great deal to +herself, and frequently at a loss for occupation, she often spent her +husband’s money from sheer desire for amusement. After that unlucky +encounter on the stairs, she resigned herself entirely to her position +as a fashionable wife. Her husband went his way unmolested, and she went +hers. She was tolerably happy, for the life was a very pleasant one to +live; but oh, what a vain, empty, profitless existence to look back +upon!--the success of a dinner, the triumph of an audacious toilette, +the only landmarks on a great flat of frivolity. But Mrs. Tredethlyn was +not at the age in which people are given to looking back; she was rich, +beautiful, accomplished, agreeable, with that dash of recklessness in +her gaiety which makes a woman such an acquisition in a drawing-room, +and the fumes of the incense which her admirers burned before her were +just a little intoxicating. The Twickenham loungers, who had worshipped +her mutely and reverently from afar off, found themselves distanced now +by bolder adorers, and, conversing amongst themselves upon the +staircases and on the outer edges of crowded drawing-rooms in the +stuccoed district, shook their heads and pulled their whiskers, gravely +opining that Mrs. Tredethlyn was “going the pace.” + +Maude had been Francis Tredethlyn’s wife more than six months, and the +London season was at its fullest height, when an accidental meeting with +Julia Desmond brought about that young lady’s restoration to her old +position of confidante and companion to the pampered daughter of her +dead father’s friend. The two women met in the Pantheon; and it was a +terrible shock to Maude to see her old companion dawdling listlessly +before a stall of toys, dressed in a shabby black silk and a doubtful +bonnet, and attended by two ungainly girls in short petticoats and +scarlet stockings. + +The proud spirit of the Desmonds had been crushed by the iron hand of +necessity. In these perpetual duels between pride and poverty, the +result seems only a question of time. Poverty must have the best of it, +unless, indeed, death steps between the combatants to give poor pride a +doubtful victory. Julia Desmond had carried her pride and anger away +from the luxurious idleness of the Cedars, to nurse them in a London +lodging. The only money she had in the world was a ten-pound note, left +out of a sum which the liberal merchant had given her for the payment of +a dressmaker’s bill. She had the jewels given her by Francis +Tredethlyn--the diamonds which she had thrown at his feet in the little +study at the Cedars, on the night of the amateur theatricals--but which +the sober reflections of the following morning had prompted her to +retain amongst her possessions. She had these, and upon these she might +have raised a very considerable sum of money. But the angry Julia had no +desire to raise money. A life of idleness in a London lodging was the +very last existence to suit her energetic nature. She inserted an +advertisement in the “Times” upon the very day after her departure from +Twickenham, and she went on advertising until she succeeded in getting a +situation as governess in a gentleman’s family. But ah! then came the +bitterest of all her trials. She fancied that her life, wherever she +went, would be more or less like her life at the Cedars. There would be +a great deal more work, perhaps, there might be less luxury, less +gaiety, but it would be the same kind of life: while on any day the +lucky chance might arise, and the beauty of the Desmonds might win her +some great prize in the matrimonial lottery. + +Alas for Julia’s inexperienced notions of a governess’s existence! She +found herself the drudge of an exacting mistress, with every hour of her +dreary life mapped out and allotted for her, with less share in the +social pleasures of the house she lived in than if she had been the +kitchen-maid, and with two small tyrants in crinkled hair and holland +pinafores always on the watch to detect her shortcomings, and to twist +them into excuses for their own. The dreadful monotony of her life would +alone have made it odious; but Julia had “a sorrow’s crown of sorrow” +perpetually pressing on her tortured brow. She had the recollection of +happier things--the pleasant idleness at the Cedars, the position of +Francis Tredethlyn’s affianced wife. And she had given up this position +in one moment of ungovernable rage and jealousy. She had suffered one +mad impulse of her proud nature to undo the slow work of months. Miss +Desmond had ample leisure for the contemplation of her folly during the +long winter evenings which she spent in a third-floor sitting-room at +Bayswater, hearing unwilling children grind hopelessly at a German +grammar by the light of two guttering tallow-candles. She _did_ +contemplate her folly, while the guttural verbs and declensions fell +with a droning noise on her unlistening ears; but the rage which swelled +her bosom was against Maude Hillary, and Maude alone. + +She saw Maude’s carriage in the Park sometimes, while she took her +allotted walk with the unwilling children, who might have been pleasant +children enough, perhaps, if they had not been weighed down by +intellectual exercises compared to which the enforced physical labours +of Toulon would have seemed light and agreeable. Julia saw her old +companion, and her mind went back to the sunny afternoons on the lawn at +Twickenham; and the sight of the pretty face and golden hair, the Skye +terriers and neatly appointed equipage, stirred the fire of hatred +always burning in her breast, until she could almost have shaken her +small fist at the merchant’s daughter. + +She saw the announcement of Maude’s marriage in the “Times,” and hated +her still more. She saw Maude in the Park, after her marriage, in a more +splendid equipage than the landau from the Cedars, and she hated her +even more and more. She set her teeth together, and drew back under the +shadow of the trees to watch Francis Tredethlyn’s wife drive by. + +“She has cheated me out of it all,” she thought; “it would all have been +mine but for her treachery.” + +Then one bright and sunny afternoon in early May the two women +met,--Julia a wan shadow of her former self, worn out with hard work, +depressed by the monotony of her life, indifferent as to her dress and +appearance; Maude a beaming creature in gauzy mauve muslin, with a +Watteau skirt, all a-flutter with ribands, and a voluminous train +sweeping the dust behind her. + +“Dear Julia----” + +“Maude--Mrs. Tredethlyn!” + +Miss Desmond turned as pale as death. The encounter had come upon her +very suddenly, and she was neither physically nor mentally able to bear +it. She set her teeth and tried to flash the old defiance from her dark +eyes. But the light of that once fiery glance died out like the flame of +a candle which burns feebly in the glare of the morning sun. Julia was +quite worn out by the life she had been leading for the last year and a +half. The pride of a Somerset might give way beneath a long course of +overwork and indifferent diet. + +After that first exclamation of surprise she drew herself to her fullest +height, and tried to pass Mrs. Tredethlyn with a bow, and a faint, cold +smile of recognition, but Maude stopped her. + +“Dearest Julia, if you knew how anxious and unhappy I have been about +you, I’m sure you would not want to pass me by. Do let us be friends. +The past is forgotten, isn’t it? Yes, I’m sure it is. Will you come +up-stairs to the picture-gallery? that’s always a nice solitary place +where one can talk. Are those young ladies with you? What very nice +little girls! Miss Desmond and I are going up-stairs, dear, to have a +chat. Will you come with us?” + +The elder of Julia’s pupils, to whom this question was addressed, +replied only by a stony glare. She was petrified by the audacity of this +smiling creature in mauve who dared to take possession of her governess. +The youthful mind, soured by a long course of German declensions, is apt +to contemplate everything in a gloomy aspect. + +Maude and Julia went past poor Haydon’s big cold picture, and made their +way to a small room which was quite empty. Julia’s face had a stern +darkness upon it, which might have frightened any one less hopeful than +Maude; but that young lady had been surrounded by an atmosphere of love +from her cradle upwards, and was entirely unacquainted with the +diagnosis of hatred. She despatched the children to look at the pictures +in the larger rooms, and then laying her hand caressingly upon Miss +Desmond’s arm, she said, very earnestly,-- + +“Dearest Julia, I hope you have forgiven me?” + +Miss Desmond locked her lips, and stood for some moments with her face +quite fixed, staring at vacancy. There were hollow rings round the dark +eyes now, and the oval cheeks had lost their smooth outline. Perpetual +drudgery and friendless solitude had brought Julia very low; but the +Desmond pride still struggled for the mastery over its grim +assailant--necessity. + +“I don’t know that I have anything to forgive,” said she, after an +ominous pause; “Mr. Tredethlyn was free to transfer his affections as +often as he chose. I was very glad to read of your marriage, for it was +at least satisfactory to find that he had not changed his mind a second +time. I do not blame any one but myself, Mrs. Tredethlyn. I should have +been wiser than to entrust my happiness to a man who----” + +Miss Desmond stopped abruptly. She made a long pause, during which she +contemplated Maude, almost as if she had been looking for some tender +spot in which to plant her dagger. + +“I must not forget that he is your husband, and I do not wish to say +anything humiliating to you; but I _cannot_ forget that he is not a +gentleman. No gentleman would have treated any woman as Mr. Tredethlyn +treated me.” + +If Julia’s conscience had had a voice, it might perhaps have chimed in +with an awkward question here: “And would any lady have spread a net to +catch a rich husband, Julia, trading on the generosity of his simple +nature, and angling for the fortune of a man whose heart was obviously +given to another?” + +Mrs. Tredethlyn’s bright face crimsoned, and her lower lip fell a +little. It is not to be supposed that she could be very fond of her +husband; but she felt any allusion to his shortcomings almost as keenly +as if he had been the incarnation of her girlish dreams. Whatever he +was, he was hers, and she was responsible for him. + +“If generosity of heart could make a gentleman, Julia,” she said, almost +entreatingly, “I think Francis would be the first of gentlemen.” + +Miss Desmond did not condescend to reply to this observation. + +“Oh, Julia,” Mrs. Tredethlyn said, after another little pause, “how can +you be so unkind and unforgiving? Have you forgotten how happy we used +to be together long ago at the Cedars? If--if I thought you were +pleasantly circumstanced now, I would not worry you with any proffers of +friendship; but somehow I cannot think that you are happy. Dear Julia, +forgive me for the past, and trust me once more.” + +The stony look in Miss Desmond’s face did not melt away under the +influence of Maude’s tenderness; but presently, with an almost awful +suddenness, she sank upon the nearest chair, dropped her face upon her +clasped hands, and burst into a passion of tears--convulsive sobs that +shook her with their hysterical force. The strong will of the Desmonds +asserted itself to the very last, for this passionate outburst was +almost noiseless. The slender frame writhed and trembled, the chest +heaved, the small hands were clenched convulsively, but there was no +vulgar outcry. Miss Desmond recovered herself almost as suddenly as she +had given way to her emotion, and drew up her head proudly, though her +face was blotted with tears. + +“Heaven help me!” she exclaimed; “what a poor weak wretch I am!” + +“You will let me be your friend again, won’t you, Julia? You’ll come and +live with me once more? You need see very little of Mr. Tredethlyn, if +you dislike him. He and I are quite fashionable people, I assure you, +and he is very seldom at home. I shall be so glad to have you with me. I +go a great deal into society, and I know you like society, Julia. Come, +dear, let us be friends again, just as we used to be in the dear old +times.” + +Maude gave a little sigh--she was apt now and then to think +sentimentally of that remote period of her existence, some four or five +years back, when she had believed that the happiest fate Heaven could +award her would be a union with Harcourt Lowther. Even now, though she +had schooled herself to think of him coldly, though she tried very hard +not to think of him at all, the memory of the old time would come back; +the picture of the home that might have been--the little cottage in St. +John’s Wood--the long quiet evenings, made delightful by genial +companionship--the pleasant hours devoted to art--the dear old +concertante duets by Mozart and Beethoven--the “two souls with but a +single thought, two hearts that beat as one,”--the images of these +things were apt to arise suddenly before her, in the midst of her +frivolous pleasure in her fine dresses, and gorgeous house, and admiring +friends. + +“Dear Julia,” she said, winding one arm caressingly about the Irish +girl, “you will come, won’t you?” + +“Yes,” Miss Desmond answered, “I will come if you want me. But I must +come upon a new footing. This time I must work for my wages. I have been +a hired slave ever since I left your father’s house. I will be your +servant, Mrs. Tredethlyn, if you choose to hire me.” + +“Julia, you will be my friend, just as you used to be.” + +“No,” cried Miss Desmond, with a resolute gesture of her hand, “no; if +you want a companion to keep your keys and attend to your lapdogs, to +finish fancy-work that you have begun and grown tired of, to read French +novels to you when you want to be read to sleep, to write your letters +of invitation, to take the bass in your duets, or carry an occasional +message to your milliner,--if you want a person of this kind, I am quite +willing to be that person.” + +“Julia!” + +“I will come to you on those terms, or not at all.” + +“You shall come to me on any terms you please, so long as you come.” + +“Very well, then, I will come. My present employer gives me sixty +guineas a year, and makes me work harder than a pack-horse. You can give +me the same money, if you think my services worth so much. I will make +arrangements for leaving my present situation. A housemaid left the +other day, and I believe she gave her mistress a month’s notice--I +suppose the same rule will hold good with me: I will come to you at the +end of that time, unless you change your mind in the meanwhile.” + +“I shall not change my mind; I only wish you could come to me to-day. +Take my card, dear, and give me yours.” + +“I have no cards,” answered Miss Desmond. “I have neither name nor place +in the world, and have no need of visiting-cards.” + +She wrote her address upon the back of an envelope, and gave it to Mrs. +Tredethlyn. To the last her manner was cold and ungracious: but Maude +parted from her happy in the idea that she had rescued her old companion +from a life of drudgery. + +“Why should I not be her hired slave? I shall still have the right to +hate her,” thought Miss Desmond, as she went back to Bayswater with her +gloomy charges. + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + + + + CHAPTER XXVII. + + SEEING A GHOST. + + +Under the perpetual influence of his friend and master, Harcourt +Lowther, Mr. Tredethlyn’s days and nights were so fully occupied that he +had very little leisure for serious thought. Day by day the patient +master taught his deadly lesson; day by day the luckless pupil took his +teacher’s precepts more deeply to heart. The simple, credulous nature +was as malleable as clay under the practised hand of the modeller, and +took any shape Mr. Lowther chose to give it. + +Francis was fully impressed with the idea that his money had purchased a +lovely wife whose heart could never be given to him. All that fair +fabric of hopes and dreams which had been his when he married Maude +Hillary had been slowly but surely undermined, and there was nothing +left of its brightness but the memory that it once had been. He thought +of those foolish hopes now with anger and bitterness. Could he at any +time have been so mad, so blind, so besotted, as to believe that this +beautiful creature, perpetually floating in an atmosphere of frivolity +and adulation, would ever fold her wings to nestle tenderly in his rude +breast? Othello, recalled to the sense of his declining years and grimy +visage by the friendly bluntness of Iago, could scarcely have thought +more bitterly of his lovely Venetian bride than Francis thought of Maude +after six months’ daily association with his old master. But if the +poison was quick to do its deadly work, the antidote was always at hand. +With thirty thousand a year and a fine constitution, what need has a +young man for reflection? It is all very well for Mr. Young the poet, +having failed to obtain wealth or preferment, to retire from a world +which has treated him ill, and meditate upon the transitory nature of +earthly blessings that he has been unable to obtain; but with youth and +thirty thousand per annum, surely no man need be bored by such a +darksome guest as dull care. Harcourt Lowther did his best to shield his +friend from the gloomy intruder by contriving that Francis Tredethlyn’s +existence should be one perpetual fever of hurry and excitement. But +though you may carry a man from racecourse to racecourse, by shrieking +expresses tearing through the darkness of the night; though you may +steep him to the lips in theatres and dancing-halls; though you may drag +him from one scene of mad unrest to another, till his tired eyeballs +have lost their power to see anything but one wearisome confusion of gas +light and colour,--you _cannot_ prevent him from thinking. The +involuntary process goes on in spite of him. He will think in a hansom +cab tearing over the stones of the Haymarket, in an express train +rushing towards Newmarket at sixty miles an hour, on the box-seat of a +guardsman’s drag, on the rattling fire-engine of an aristocratic amateur +Braidwood, on the downs at Epsom--yes, even at the final rush, when +every eye is strained to concentrate its power of sight upon one speck +of colour, the man’s mind, for ever the veriest slave to follow that +will-o’-the-wisp called association, will wander away in spite of +him,--to mourn above a baby’s grave, to sit amidst the perfume of +honeysuckle and roses in a still summer twilight trifling with the rings +on a woman’s hand. + +There were times when thought would come to Francis Tredethlyn, in spite +of all his friend’s watchful care. He would sit at the head of a +dinner-table at the Crown and Sceptre, staring vacantly at the frisky +wine-bubbles in his shallow glass, and thinking how happy he might have +been if Maude had only loved him. Ah, this poor substitute of noise +instead of mirth,--this pitiful tinsel of dissipation in place of the +pure gold of happiness,--how miserable a mockery it was even at the +best! + +Mr. Lowther generally broke in upon such gloomy reveries as these by +calling to the waiter to exchange his friend’s shallow glass for a +tumbler. But there are pangs of regret not to be lulled to slumber by +all the sparkling wines that were ever grown in the fair champagne +country, and Harcourt Lowther sometimes found his work very difficult. + +But amidst such perpetual hurry and excitement it was only natural that +some things should be almost entirely forgotten by Francis Tredethlyn, +and amongst these forgotten things were the sorrows of his missing +cousin. The Gray’s-Inn lawyers had _carte blanche_, and could have +employed all the detective machinery in London in a search for Susan +Tredethlyn, _alias_ Susan Lesley, had they so chosen; but your intensely +respectable family solicitor is the slowest of slow coaches, and Messrs. +Kursdale and Scardon contented themselves with the insertion of an +occasional advertisement in the second column of the “Times” supplement, +informing Susan Lesley that she might hear of something to her advantage +on applying at their office; and further offering a liberal reward for +any information respecting the above-mentioned lady. + +The advertisement did not entirely escape notice. A good many Susan +Lesleys presented themselves:--one a fat old woman of seventy, who kept +a tobacconist’s shop in the neighbourhood of Seven Dials; another a bony +and pugnacious-looking person, with fiery red hair, and a fine +South-of-Ireland brogue, who threatened dire vengeance on the quiet +lawyer when he refused to recognize her pretensions to hear of something +to her advantage. All the Susan Lesleys were ready to swear anything in +order to establish their claims to that unknown advantage--which might +be anything from a five-pound note to a million of money, or a dormant +peerage,--but they all broke down lamentably under Mr. Kursdale’s +cross-questioning, and he did not even trouble Francis Tredethlyn to +confront the false syrens. + +So, amid Newmarket meetings and Greenwich dinners, chicken-hazard, +billiards, and unlimited loo, poor Susan’s rustic image melted quite +away; and Francis forgot the solemn promise he had made, and the sacred +duty he had set himself to do when his Uncle Oliver’s heritage first +fell into his hands. And Francis Tredethlyn’s forgetfulness might have +lasted very long, if an accident had not awakened him to a most vivid +recollection of the past. + +It was the May-time saturnalia of the turf, the Epsom week, and Mr. +Tredethlyn’s drag had been to and fro upon the dusty roads carrying a +heavy load of Bohemianism under convoy of the indefatigable Harcourt +Lowther. Francis had been rather unlucky, and a good deal of money had +changed hands after the Derby, the larger part of it finding its way +into the pockets of Mr. Tredethlyn’s obliging friend. The Oaks day was +to have redeemed his fortunes, but the day was over, and Francis drove +home amongst the noisy ruck of landaus and waggonettes, ponderous double +dog-carts, and heavily-laden sociables, tax-carts and costermongers’ +barrows, with the outer leaves of an attenuated cheque-book peeping from +his breast-pocket, and the dim consciousness that he had distributed +hastily-scribbled cheques to the amount of some thousands, floating +confusedly in his brain. He drove to town through the spring twilight, +with Dutch dolls in his hat, and a heavy pain in his heart. The _papier +mâché_ noses of his companions were scarcely more false and hollow than +their gaiety. + +Of course it would be impossible to conclude such a day without a +dinner. The sort of people amongst whom Francis Tredethlyn lived are +perpetually dining and giving dinners; only the dinner-givers are as one +to twenty of the diners; so, at some time between nine and ten o’clock, +Maude’s husband found himself in his usual place at the head of a +glittering table, in an odorous atmosphere of asparagus soup and fried +mullet, and with a racking headache, that was intensified by every +jingle of glasses and rattle of knives and forks. + +He had lost heavily, and had drunk deeply under the warm May sunshine on +the Downs. To lose cheerfully is given to many men, but how very few +have the power to lose quietly! Francis had taken his disappointment in +a rather uproarious spirit; slapping his companions on the shoulder, and +making new engagements right and left; backing the same horses by whose +shortcomings he had just lost his money; and huskily protesting the +soundness of his own judgment in despite of the misfortunes of to-day. + +He went on talking now at the head of the dinner-table, though the sound +of his own voice by no means improved the splitting pain in his head. He +went on talking amidst a clamour of many voices, through which one sober +and silent toady, sitting next Mr. Tredethlyn, made a vain effort to +understand his discourse. He poured forth misty vaticinations on coming +events, gave general invitations for a great dinner at Virginia Water on +the Ascot cup day, and galloped noisily along the road to ruin in which +Harcourt Lowther had set him going. That splitting headache of his was +getting worse every minute, when some one proposed an adjournment to an +adjacent theatre. + +There had been counsel taken with a waiter. A West-end waiter is no mean +dramatic critic, though he never sees a play; the opinions of playgoers +percolating perpetually through his ears must leave some residuum in the +shape of knowledge. The waiter opined that the best entertainment in +London was to be had at Drury Lane, where a melodramatic spectacle of +some celebrity was being played that evening for the last time but one. + +Inspired by the waiter, Mr. Tredethlyn’s party made their way to the +theatre, bearing Mr. Tredethlyn along with them, indifferent where he +went, and carrying his headache with him everywhere. + +It was past ten o’clock, and the last scene of the great spectacle was +on. The house was full, and the audience were chiefly of that restless +and vociferous order who drop into a theatre at half-price on great +race-nights. Mr. Tredethlyn and his party could only find standing-room +at the back of the dress-circle, and from this position Francis beheld +the grand final _tableau_. + +The piece was an adaptation of some great Parisian success--some story +of the Reign of Terror,--and in this last scene the stage was crowded by +a clamorous populace. Upwards of three hundred men, women, and children +were engaged in the scene. Blouses and uniforms, the picturesque +head-dresses of the provincial peasantry, the scarlet cap of liberty, +the cocked hats of the gendarmerie,--all blended in one grand mass of +movement and colour, while the rapid action of the piece drew to its +triumphant close. + +Mr. Tredethlyn did not trouble himself to wonder what the piece had been +about. He saw somebody killed--a villain it was to be supposed, since +the crowd set up a well-organized yell of rejoicing; then there was a +reconciliation, an embrace, a young lady in short-waisted white muslin +clasped to the breast of a young man in a long-tailed blue coat and low +top-boots, adorned with many-coloured bunches of riband. Then the band +broke into the stately measure of the “Marseillaise Hymn,” the crowd +clamoured a shrill chorus, and the curtain fell. + +It was while the curtain was descending very slowly to that triumphant +music that Francis Tredethlyn saw something which startled him like the +sight of a ghost. + +It was a face--a woman’s face in a high Normandy cap, looking out of the +many faces in the crowd, a thin, worn, melancholy countenance, very sad +to look upon, among all those other faces fronting the audience with a +stereotyped smile. + +“My God!” cried Mr. Tredethlyn, clasping his two hands upon his hot +forehead, and pushing back the rumpled hair, “who is it? What’s the +matter with me? I feel as if I’d seen a ghost!” + +There was a little piece after the melodrama, a slender little +production, popularly known as a “screaming” farce. It was not the most +strikingly original dramatic invention, and its chief point consisted in +one gentleman in tartan trousers being perpetually mistaken for another +gentleman in tartan trousers, whole both gentlemen were alternately +sitting upon bonnet-boxes and dropping trays of crockery. + +There was certainly not very much in the farce, but the audience laughed +uproariously, and Francis Tredethlyn’s party joined in the laughter. He +found himself laughing, too, as loudly as the rest of them; but amidst +all that confusion and clamour, the wan, sad face, with two inartistic +patches of rouge upon its hollow cheeks, kept surging up ever and anon +out of the chaos of his brain, and haunting him like the face of a +ghost. + +Who was it? What was it? Was it some accidental likeness? Was it a face +that he had seen and known in the past? Alas for the steady, +clear-headed soldier, who had been so prompt to obey military orders, so +strict in the performance of duty! Francis Tredethlyn’s muddled senses +refused to help him to-night. The author of “What will he do with it?” +tells us that light wines are the most treacherous of liquors; “they +inflame the brain like fire, while melting on the palate like ice.” Mr. +Tredethlyn had been drinking a mixture of divers champagnes and Moselles +all day long, and he tried in vain to fix the vague image which floated +amidst the confusion of his brain. + +He went home in the early grey of the May morning; but not to sleep. He +lay tossing from side to side, tormented by that preternatural +wakefulness which is apt to succeed a long period of riot and +excitement. The course at Epsom, the gipsy fortune-tellers, the +betting-men in white hats and green veils, the Dutch dolls and pink +calico pincushions, the dust and clamour of the homeward drive, the +jingling of broken glass, the popping of corks, the revolutionary crowd +in the drama, the tartan trousers and broken bandboxes in the +farce,--all mixed themselves in his brain, falling to pieces, and +putting themselves together again like the images in a kaleidoscope. + +Mr. Lowther, coming to see his friend at the correct visiting hour, +found Francis still in bed, in a little room behind the library, which +he had fitted up for himself at Harcourt’s instigation, as a bedroom and +dressing-room, a kind of refuge to which he might betake himself when he +was unfit to encounter the calm gaze of Maude’s clear blue eyes fixed +upon him in sorrowful wonder. Her manner to him had never quite +recovered its old kindness since that unlucky encounter on the stairs. +She was still kind to him; but he could see that it was by an effort +only that she retained anything of her old friendliness. He could see +this, and the knowledge of it galled him to the quick. Harcourt +Lowther’s work was more than half done by this time. He had no longer +any difficulty in beguiling Francis abroad, for the Cornishman no longer +cared to remain at home. + +Mr. Tredethlyn had not very long fallen into a feverish slumber after +long hours of wakeful weariness, when his friend called upon him. +Harcourt seated himself by the side of the narrow brass bedstead, and +stared contemplatively at the sleeper, while he spoke to the valet who +had admitted him to the darkened chamber. + +“You can let your master sleep till four o’clock, Jervois,” he said. “At +four give him some soda and brandy. He has an appointment with me at +half-past five. Take care that he doesn’t oversleep himself. I’ll write +him a line by way of reminder.” + +He drew a little writing-table towards him, and wrote a few lines on a +sheet of note-paper: + + + “DEAR TREDETHLYN,--Remember your engagement at my quarters; 5.30 + sharp. You had better bring the mail phaeton, and can give me a + lift to the S. and G. + + “Yours faithfully, + + “H. L.” + + +He slipped his note into an envelope, and dipped his pen into the ink; +but before writing the address, he stopped suddenly, and tore the note +into fragments. + +“_She_ might see it!” he muttered, thoughtfully, “and that might show +her the nature of my cards. The only wise man is the one who can do his +work without that most dangerous of all machinery--pen and paper. Poor +Francis! he looks a little worn.” + +Mr. Lowther looked down upon the sleeper with the most benign +expression. He had no dislike whatever to the simple Cornishman; he had +only--his own plans. + +“These fellows who come suddenly into a large fortune are sure to kill +themselves before they have done spending it,” he murmured, +complacently. “Jervois,” he said, as he went out, “you won’t forget your +master’s engagement. He’d better drive up to my place in the mail +phaeton.” + +Mr. Lowther’s “place” was the same lodging which he had taken for +himself when he first returned to England. He was an adventurer; but he +was not a vulgar adventurer, and in all his dealings with Francis +Tredethlyn he had not sponged upon that gentleman’s purse for so much as +a five-pound note. He had his plans; but they were not the plans of a +man who lives from hand to mouth. He won a good deal of his friend’s +money; but he never cheated Francis out of a sixpence. His sole +advantage was that which must always accompany skill and experience as +opposed to ignorance and inexperience. In the meanwhile, Harcourt +Lowther lived as best he might on his winnings and a small allowance +made him by his mother. + +The Lowthers were great people in their way, and Harcourt had admission +to some of the best houses in London. He was very well received in that +circle in which Maude Tredethlyn had taken her place, and contrived +somehow or other to be present for an hour or so at almost all of the +parties in which she appeared; though to break away from the haunts of +Bohemianism to drop into politer life, and then return to Bohemia in the +same evening, was almost as difficult as a harlequin’s jump in a +pantomime. Harcourt Lowther did this, however, and did it very often; +and Maude Tredethlyn, enjoying all the privileges of a matron, found +herself sometimes standing amongst the statues and exotics on a crowded +staircase in Tyburnia, talking with Harcourt Lowther almost as +familiarly as they had talked in the old summer evenings by the quiet +river. + +Sometimes, looking back upon such a meeting, Maude felt inclined to be +angry with Mr. Lowther for having taken something of the old tone; but +could she blame him for the lowered accents of his voice, the subdued +light in his eyes, the unconscious tenderness into which he was betrayed +in those public meetings, when she remembered how nobly he kept aloof +from her in her home? Never yet had he presumed upon his intimacy with +the husband in order to intrude himself on the presence of the wife. +What harm or danger, then, if, in crowded assemblages, he surmounted all +manner of small difficulties in order to make his way to her side? What +could it matter if he lingered just a little longer than others, +contriving all sorts of excuses for delay? It is rather a pleasant thing +for a frivolous young married woman, serene in the consciousness of her +own integrity, to know that a man’s heart is breaking for her in a +gentlemanly way. A word too much, a tone, a look, and Maude would have +taken alarm, and fled from her old admirer as from the venomous fangs of +some deadly reptile; but Harcourt Lowther knew better than to speak that +word. He had his own plans, and he was carrying them out in his own way: +neither by word nor look had he ever yet offended Maude Tredethlyn; but +now, when he tried to cut a path for himself through the crowd about +her, he found less difficulty in the progress. People began to make way +for him, and it was considered a settled thing that he should be found +somewhere near her. He had not offended her; he had only--compromised +her. + + +Francis awoke before the hour at which his servant had been told to call +him. The valet’s place was almost a sinecure, for the Cornishman still +retained, of his old nature, the simple independent habits of a man who +can wait upon himself. He got up at four o’clock, and had nearly +completed his toilet, when the servant brought the soda and brandy +prescribed by Harcourt Lowther. + +“And if you please, sir, you were to be so good as to remember an +appointment with Mr. Lowther at half-past five, and was to please to +drive the mail phaeton,” said the valet, while his master drank the +revivifying beverage. + +“Very good,” muttered Mr. Tredethlyn, with something like a groan; “you +may go and order the phaeton for five o’clock. Is Mrs. Tredethlyn at +home?” + +“No, sir.” + +The man departed, and Francis finished dressing. He had ten minutes to +spare after putting on his outer coat, and he sat down to look at the +newspaper which lay ready cut on his writing-table. He took up the +“Times,” but only stared vacantly at the advertisement sheet. His head +still ached, in spite of a shower-bath and a vigorous application of +hard hair-brushes; but his intellect was a good deal clearer than it had +been before he dressed. + +Suddenly, out of the advertisement sheet, vivid as the figure of Banquo +at Macbeth’s uncomfortable supper-party, there arose before him a +face--a wan, faded face--in a white muslin-cap. + +“Great Heaven!” he cried; “I didn’t know her!” + +The ghost that he had seen upon the previous night was the ghost of the +woman he had so long been looking for--his cousin Susan. + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + + + + CHAPTER XXVIII. + + “OH, MY AMY! MINE NO MORE!” + + +Francis Tredethlyn drove his friend down to Richmond at a rattling pace, +but he scarcely spoke half-a-dozen words throughout the journey; and +Harcourt Lowther, keeping the watchful eye of the master upon his pupil, +saw that something was amiss. + +Now although the Cornishman’s guide and Mentor had his plans, very +definite plans, as clearly drawn out as the great Duke’s arrangements +for Waterloo,--which wondrous victory was _not_ quite the lucky accident +our neighbours imagine it to have been; yet he was far too wise a +diplomatist to ignore the sublime opportunities which chance sometimes +throws in the way of a schemer, shattering the complicated machinery so +dexterously and patiently put together, and opening a new and easy way +to success over the ruins of the old road. + +Mr. Lowther was quite prepared to make good use of any accident which +seemed likely to help him. He was like a chess-player who takes his +place before the board with a perfect plan of action mapped out in his +mind, and who may see his entire scheme overthrown, his most brilliant +arrangements stultified by the first move of his adversary, but who will +win the game nevertheless, after his enemy’s fashion, if not after his +own, being no enthusiastic advocate of pet theories, but only a man of +the world, resolutely bent on success. Upon this particular afternoon +Harcourt saw that something had gone amiss with his friend, and he was +bent on discovering what the something was. With this view he had resort +to that imaginary instrument which his companions of Bohemia called the +“pump-handle;” but on letting down a moral plummet into the depths of +Mr. Tredethlyn’s mind, he found himself in much deeper water than usual, +and quite unable to reach the bottom. + +“If he has secrets from me, he’ll throw all my machinery out of gear,” +mused Mr. Lowther; “and yet I don’t quite know that--a secret might be +worked into something _with her_. What a wonderful creature that Iago +was, by the bye! especially when one considers that he took all that +trouble for no better motive than jealous twinges about a wife whom he +treated like a dog, and an envious grudge of Cassio’s advancement. Aha, +my divine Williams, that’s the only flaw in your _magnum opus_; your +motive power isn’t equal to your ponderous machinery! Now if Othello had +been the owner of thirty thousand a year and a beautiful wife whom Iago +loved, there might have been some reason for the exhibition of a little +Italian diplomacy. But revenge! Bah! The luxury of a maniac. The pet +wickedness of a woman. Your novelist cannot write a story, your +playwright cannot devise a drama, but he must have recourse to revenge +to keep the action going. Yet, in the history of men how small and +pitiful a part the heroic passion plays! A Cromwell condemns a Charles +Stuart to the scaffold. For revenge? No; simply because Charles is in +his way. A Robespierre drowns his country in the blood of her sons; and +yet I doubt if he bore a hearty grudge against one of his victims--a +little political jealousy, perhaps, at the worst. A Richelieu +extinguishes the haughty _noblesse_ of France--out of revenge? No; but +the _noblesse_ interfere with the schemes of my Lord Cardinal. A +Countess of Essex connives at the poisoning of her husband: revenge? not +a bit of it, but because she wants to marry some one else; and poor Sir +Thomas Overbury must die, not that any one hates the man, but the +creature is so tiresome. And Arabella Stuart pines in prison; and the +heads of the regicides rot on Temple Bar; and Charles, the merry +monarch, the pet of the painters and romancers, the man whose sins have +been dealt with so lightly that we are apt to mistake them for +virtues--can be as hard as a Nero when it suits him that the patriots +Russell and Sidney shall perish in their prime; and James II. sends +young Monmouth to the block. Why? Is revenge the impulse that stirs +these men’s hearts? Not at all. Not man’s passionate hatred of his +neighbour, but man’s devoted love of himself is the motive power that +moves the headsman’s arms, and bids the swooping axe descend upon fair +young necks from which the lovelocks have been newly shorn. Revenge? +Pshaw! Has it a feather’s weight in the balance of history? In all the +story of our land, what has revenge to answer for? A semi-mythical +Rosamond poisoned in her bower--an Essex condemned in passionate haste, +and lamented in dreary leisure by the Queen who loved him--a +Konigsmark’s handsome face trampled upon by a German tigress.” + +With such random reflections as these Mr. Lowther beguiled the silence +of the drive to Richmond. During dinner and throughout the evening he +watched his friend closely; but all the fascinations of Bohemia were +powerless to arouse Francis Tredethlyn from the thoughtful mood. Indeed, +the Bohemians had a charming faculty for enjoying themselves amongst +themselves without any reference to the host and paymaster, who was +generally looked at rather in the light of a bore and an intruder--the +death’s head at the banquet. Some of Mr. Tredethlyn’s new friends had +christened him the Necessary Evil; and to-night, while he sat moodily +brooding over the story of his cousin, pretty lips made faces at the +company over his shoulder; and one lovely Bohemian, more playful than +the rest, amused herself and her acquaintances by filling the pockets of +his dress-coat with the empty shells of the lobsters, and the corks of +the champagne. + +For the rest, what did it matter in what dreary regions his mind +wandered, so long as he was there to write a cheque for the bill? Only +one pair of eyes looked at him with any show of interest; and those eyes +watched him as the serpent watches the bird; with as deadly a purpose, +with as quiet a gaze. But, watch him as closely as he would to-night, +there was something in Francis Tredethlyn’s mind which Harcourt Lowther +could not read quite as easily as a page in an open book, and as it was +his habit to read most things relating to the Cornishman. + +“What does it matter?” thought Mr. Lowther, abandoning himself to +reflection again during the homeward drive; “let him keep his secret +from me if he likes, and I’ll use it for my own benefit when he plays +against me. He is my dummy, and he plays _my_ game. When he leads a suit +of his own choosing, I am ready on his right hand with a cluster of +small trumps. Play as he will, he can scarcely throw me out. What does +it matter _how_ the game is won, so long as one scores the odd trick?” + + +The day after this Richmond dinner was Sunday; but even that +circumstance did not prevent Francis Tredethlyn from taking preliminary +steps towards finding the missing girl whom he fancied quite within his +reach now; since it seemed certain that the face he had seen on the +stage of Drury Lane was the face of his uncle Oliver’s daughter, and no +other. It had been his habit until very lately to accompany Maude every +Sunday morning to a certain fashionable place of worship not very far +from Sloane Street, where miserable sinners lamented their iniquities +and their wretchedness amid the subdued rustling of silk at a guinea a +yard, and in an atmosphere that was odorous with Jockey Club and Ess +Bouquet. But Star-and-Garter dinners, and evenings “finished” in +mysterious localities at the West-end, are by no means conducive to +early rising; and now the Sabbath bells that Mr. Tredethlyn had been +wont to hear ringing blithely in the morning air while he breakfasted +with his wife, were apt to mingle with his feverish morning dreams, and +to transform themselves into the shrill peal of an alarm-bell summoning +the fireman’s succour for perishing wretches in some blazing habitation, +or the bell on board a boat leaving a pier--a boat which the dreamer +was--oh, so eagerly--striving to reach, but never, never could; for just +as his foot was going to step upon the deck, the plank on which he trod +would give way and tilt him into the waking world; with a raging +headache, perhaps, and a dull ceaseless pain in his breast, which he +scarcely cared to acknowledge by its ugly name of Remorse. + +So now Mr. Tredethlyn was apt to spend the earlier part of his Sunday +morning in fitful slumbers, and the later portion of his day in the +society of his devoted friends. Unhappily Mephistopheles has such a +knack of making himself useful, that after once enjoying his society, +Faust is apt to find life very dreary without that fatal companionship. +Drifted away from the simple life that was natural to him, Francis was +only a helpless creature, with all the dismal blank of existence to be +filled up somehow or other. + +But upon this particular Sunday he had a purpose of his own, and the +honest energy with which he set about the achievement of that purpose +transformed him into a new being. + +Harcourt Lowther might have felt a little twinge of alarm had he seen +his pupil, as he walked away from the stuccoed district, with the old +light in his eyes, the old lightness in his firm tread. Francis forgot +that he had an empty life to drag out, and an idolized wife who did +_not_ love him. He forgot everything, except that he had to redeem his +half-forgotten vow, to fulfil a long-neglected duty. + +“My uncle Oliver’s money brought _her_ peace of mind, and prosperity for +the father she loves so dearly,” thought Mr. Tredethlyn. “Let me +remember that, when I think of his disinherited daughter.” + +Crumpled in one of the pockets of his overcoat, Francis had found the +programme of the performances at Drury Lane, and in the long list of +names crowded together at the bottom of the programme, he discovered +half hidden amongst Percies and Vavasours, Vane Tempests and Leveson +Gowers, and such appellations as the _corps de ballet_ modestly chooses +for its own--the vulgar name of Turner. He concluded, therefore, that +his cousin had called herself Turner at the Drury Lane Theatre, as well +as at Coltonslough, and he did not anticipate much difficulty in finding +her. The search after any information upon theatrical matters might have +seemed rather a hopeless thing on a Sunday, but Francis Tredethlyn’s +energy was not to be damped by small difficulties. + +“I have wasted too many hours already,” he thought; “where my poor lost +girl is concerned, every moment of delay seems a new wrong.” + +He took a hansom and drove straight to the theatre; but Drury Lane on a +Sunday seems an utterly hopeless and impracticable place. The stage-door +was closed. The box-office might have been the tomb of the Pharaohs for +any appearance of life within its portals. Happily Francis was not to be +disheartened. He walked up and down the street until the clocks struck +one, and a dense crowd began to pour out of a chapel in Crown Court, and +disgorge itself into Little Russell Street. Then, when the doors of the +public-houses were opened, he entered a tavern nearly opposite the +stage-door, and made his inquiries. + +The barmaid at the tavern was able to tell him where the +stage-doorkeeper lived, but she was not able to give him any information +as to the habitations of the ladies of the _ballet_. + +“Most of them live out at Camberwell, or up Islington way; though how +they manage it, poor things, walking backwards and forwards through all +sorts of weather, is more than I can tell. They send over here when +there’s a long rehearsal for their half pint of porter and their +sandwich, and that’s about all the dinner they get on such days, I dare +say.” + +Thus, discursively, the barmaid. Francis left her, and made his way to +the adjacent court in which the doorkeeper was to be found in his +private capacity. That gentleman was in the midst of a very greasy +dinner and in the bosom of his family when Mr. Tredethlyn intruded on +him, and was at first inclined to resent the interruption. + +“I don’t carry two hundred and forty-nine addresses in my blessed head,” +he remarked, in an injured tone; “which our company at the beginning of +this season was over two hundred and forty-nine; and I don’t care to be +hunted upon Sundays when I’m eating of my dinner, for a pack of +ballet-girls. I don’t get paid for _that_ when I take my salary. If any +young swell wants to find out one of our ladies’ address, to leave ’em a +bokay, or to take a ticket for their benefit or such-like, I should +think they could find it out of a week-day, and not come chivying of a +man over his Sunday wittles.” + +But a judiciously-administered half-sovereign had a very soothing effect +upon the mind and manners of the doorkeeper. There are so few things in +a small way which cannot be done with half-a-sovereign. The man laid +down his knife and fork, and applied himself to serious reflection, +while his wife and family suspended their operations to stare admiringly +at the fashionably-dressed intruder. + +“Let me see,” said the doorkeeper, scraping his stubbly chin as he +mused, “there’s such a many of ’em, that I may sit here trying to +remember where this here Miss Turner lives till doomsday, and not be no +wiser. I’ll tell you what I’ll do with you, sir; I’ve got the addresses +of every member of the company in my book over the way. I’ll slip over +and get Miss Turner’s direction, while you wait here if you like.” + +“Over the way” was Drury Lane Theatre. The doorkeeper took some +ponderous keys from a nail over the mantel-piece, and put on his hat. +Francis Tredethlyn went with him. + +“Turner,” said the man; “Turner? A pale-faced young woman, ain’t she? +looks as if she’d gone through no end of trouble. She’s only an extra, +took on for this here great piece that’s just done with.” + +“An extra?” inquired Francis. + +“Yes; a sort of supernume’ry; not a reg’lar ballet-girl,--can’t dance, +or anything of that sort, only fit to go on in crowds, and so on. I +remember her, a very quiet, civil-spoken young person.” + +The address was soon found; it was at a house in Brydges Street. Francis +left the doorkeeper with his heart beating tumultuously; his face pale +with emotion that was half joy, half pain--joy at finding her at last, +when hope had almost died out into forgetfulness--pain at finding her +thus. Ah, yes! it was very painful to remember the innocent rosy face +peeping out of a dimity bonnet, and to know that sorrow had set its +undefaceable hand upon that rustic beauty, and that the face he +remembered had no more a place upon this earth. + +“Miss Turner and Miss Willoughby live together over an eating-house in +Brydges Street,” the doorkeeper had told Francis, with the further +information that he was to pull the top bell twice. Mr. Tredethlyn found +the eating-house, which was ostensibly closed; but the door of the shop +was ajar, and the atmosphere about and around it seemed greasy with the +steam of suet-pudding and boiled meat. The bell which Francis rang was +answered by a careworn-looking woman of doubtful age, who had an air of +faded gentility, a flimsy smartness of apparel, which was more plainly +demonstrative of poverty than the shabbiest garments that ever hung +together loosely upon the figure of a slattern. + +“Miss Turner lives here, I believe?” Francis said eagerly; “I wish to +see her, if you please.” + +“Miss Turner _did_ live here,” the woman answered, “but she has left.” + +“Left? Why I saw her at the theatre only the night before last, and the +doorkeeper has just directed me here.” + +“Miss Turner’s engagement expired last night, sir, and she left London +this morning.” + +“This morning, only this morning! But of course you can tell me where +she has gone? I am her first-cousin, her only surviving relative. If I +had known that there was the least chance of her leaving London, I +should have tried to find her last night. Will you be good enough to +direct me to her?” + +The woman shook her head. + +“I don’t know where Miss Turner has gone,” she said. + +Francis Tredethlyn’s face whitened to the very lips. + +“My God!” he exclaimed, “is there a fatality in this business? am I +never to find her?” + +Then addressing himself to the woman with sudden earnestness, he said,-- + +“For pity’s sake, if you can help me in my difficulty, do so with all +your might. You do not know how much depends on my finding her. I +scarcely think I should say too much, if I were to tell you that it is a +matter of life and death; for I saw my cousin’s face the night before +last, and it looked to me like a face that is fading away from this +earth. You have been told, perhaps, to give no one her address; but she +did not think her cousin Francis would come to ask for it. Pray trust me +and believe in me; I am the only friend that poor girl has in all this +world.” + +“I have told you the truth, sir,” answered the woman, quietly; “I do not +know where Miss Turner has gone. Anything I can tell you about her, I +shall be happy to tell,” she added, as if answering the look of blank +despair in Francis Tredethlyn’s face; “but it is very little. Will you +step upstairs to my room? It is only a humble place, but it will be +quieter there than here.” + +This could scarcely fail to be true; for during the very brief interview +which had just taken place, Francis had been brushed against and flouted +some half-dozen times by young persons with jugs and door-keys, going to +and from a neighbouring public-house. It was the popular dinner-hour in +Drury Lane, and four separate floors, with their minor divisions of +backs and fronts, were more or less engaged in the business of dining. + +Francis followed his cousin’s late associate, Miss Willoughby, up three +steps of rather dingy stairs, upon which little colonies of children had +established themselves here and there with their toys. One young +gentleman of tender years was trying to fly a kite in the well of the +staircase, with a persevering disregard of atmospheric difficulties and +the heads of the passers below; while a young lady, belonging to an +adjacent tribe of settlers, took her doll for an airing in a +lobster-shell, drawn by a string which wound itself about Mr. +Tredethlyn’s legs, and had to be unwound like a bandage. Occasional +skirmishers from distant settlements came sliding down the +banisters--which, compared to the stairs, were as the modern railroad to +the ancient highway--assailing peaceable families with the war-whoop of +defiance: and the cries of “Shan’t,”--“Do it again, then, +there!”--“Wouldn’t you just like to, now?”--“Won’t I tell my mother, +that’s all?”--“Tell-tale-tit, yah!”--resounded in a delightful confusion +of voices from the first floor to the attics. + +Miss Willoughby conducted Francis to a back room upon the third floor--a +dark gloomy little room, hung with chocolate-and-drab paper, but +enlivened by a little gallery of theatrical photographs, and some +engraved portraits cut out of Tallis’s “Shakespeare,” neatly arranged +over the mantel-piece. + +It was not very difficult to perceive that the anomalous piece of +furniture, which was too vividly brown for mahogany, too elaborately +grained for nature, and which was not quite a chest of drawers, nor +altogether a wardrobe, was neither more nor less than a member of the +mysterious family of press-bedsteads. It was not difficult to perceive +that industrious poverty and simple independence reigned in that +three-pair back, whose pitiful goods and chattels, and worthless scraps +of ornament, were arranged with as exquisite a neatness as might pervade +the chambers of a bachelor in the Albany, or a gandin of the Faubourg +St. Honoré. + +“I shall miss your cousin very much,” said Miss Willoughby; “we got on +so nicely together.” + +“She lived with you? Here?” asked Francis. + +“Yes; we shared this apartment. It made the rent come lighter for both +of us, and apartments are so dear in London; and of course it was the +same advantage in coals--not that we wanted many for our little bit of +cooking, but one can’t even boil a kettle without a fire; and saveloys +and sandwiches are apt to pall upon one after a long continuance; so, +having Miss Turner to live with me made it altogether come much +pleasanter; besides which, we were always the best of friends.” + +Mr. Tredethlyn was slow to answer. He was looking round the room, and +out at the leaden ball floating on the surface of a dingy leaden cistern +visible athwart some scarecrow geraniums, which seemed as if they had +been put upon a short allowance of mould. Everything in the place, from +the scrimped morsel of worn carpet, which only made an oasis of +Kidderminster in a dreary desert of boards, to the handful of red coals +that burned brightly between massive embankments of brick, bore mute +evidence to the poverty which struggles and endures. An open cupboard +stared Francis in the face, and he saw, oh, such a pitiful morsel of +sickly-complexioned ham lying cheek by jowl with the fag-end of a stale +half-quartern loaf. He looked at these things, and remembered the house +in which he lived, the reckless extravagance that pervaded all his life. + +“Does a curse cling to the gold of a miser?” he thought; “and is my +uncle Oliver’s child never to derive any advantage from the wealth her +father scraped and pinched together, at the cost of everything that +makes life endurable?” + +He roused himself from his brief reverie to appeal once more to the +elderly ballet-girl, who had seated herself by the little Pembroke +table, on which lay a newspaper evidently borrowed from the +establishment below, and transformed into a kind of parchment by the +action of grease. + +“Give me what information you can about my cousin,” he said, +imploringly; “and if you will accept any little present from me in +acknowledgment of your kindness, I will send you a cheque to-morrow +morning, and you shall purchase what you please as a memorial of your +friendship for my poor little Susy.” + +A faint flush kindled in Miss Willoughby’s pale cheeks. A cheque! Oh, +bright representative of an El Dorado, only to be thought of in some +happy dream. Clara Willoughby--otherwise Mary Anne Jones--had not seen +such a thing as a cheque since the happy time in which she had been +columbine at the tumble-down little theatre in a garrison town, and the +colonel himself had taken five pounds’ worth of tickets for her benefit. + +“You are very kind,” she said; “but I don’t want any payment for the +little help I can give you. Miss Turner is a very quiet young person; +and, though we were so friendly together, she never told me anything of +her history; and when she went away this morning, having only been taken +on as an extra, and her engagement expiring last night, she said, +‘You’ve been very good to me, Clara, and I shall always remember you +kindly; and if things go well with me, I’ll write and tell you where I +am. You mustn’t be offended because I don’t tell you where I am going. I +don’t quite know myself. I have not made up my mind yet; there’s a place +I want to go to, and friends I want to see; but I don’t think I shall +ever bring my mind to go there, or to see them.’” + +“I think I understand her,” said Francis. “I think the place she means +is her old home. If she goes there, I shall hear of her immediately; but +if--if she should not be wise enough to return to the friends who would +be so glad to shelter her----. Did she ever speak of her home, or of her +cousin Francis Tredethlyn?” + +“Never! She seemed to have some settled grief upon her mind; and having +known trouble myself, I know how hard it is to be worried by strangers’ +questions and strangers’ pity, even when it’s meant ever so kindly; so I +never asked her to tell me so much as one word about her former life.” + +“But how did she come to be at the theatre with you? I should think of +all ways of earning a living, that must be the very last that would +occur to my cousin Susan.” + +“That’s very true,” answered Miss Willoughby; “but it doesn’t take a +woman long to come to the last way by which she can earn her bread--the +ways are not so many. I can tell you how your cousin came to be at Drury +Lane, for I was the means of getting her engaged; and it all came about, +as one may say, quite promiscuously. I suppose you know that Susan +Turner is a married woman?” + +“Yes, I do know of her unhappy marriage.” + +“She called herself Miss Turner in the bills, because, you see, in the +theatrical profession a single female is always considered more +attractive; though why it should be so,--unless with regard to boys in +jackets, in the Christmas holidays, who, being apt to fall in love with +the columbine, might find it damping to their spirits to know she was +the mother of a family,--I really can’t imagine. However, Susan was Miss +Turner in the bills, and I am Miss Willoughby for the same reason, +although I’ve been thirteen years a widow come next boxing-night. +Perhaps you may remember the sprite who was killed by a fall off a +flying bridge in ‘Harlequin Buttercup, or the Maiden all Forlorn; the +Fairy Queen of the Daisies, and the Cow with the Crumpled Horn,’ twelve +years ago last Christmas? Not being professional yourself, you mayn’t +happen to remember the circumstance; but Signor Wilsonio was my husband. +He was _not_ an Italian, and his name in private life was Wilson. We had +been married two years, and he left me with a little boy just six months +old.” + +Francis listened very respectfully to this fragment of family history, +but he chafed under its infliction nevertheless. + +“If you will tell me how you came to----” he began. + +“I am just coming to that,” answered Miss Willoughby, with dignity. “My +poor husband, not having anything to leave me except a complimentary +benefit, which the manager of the theatre allowed me on account of my +bereavement, I was obliged, of course, to continue in the profession; +and oh, sir! nobody that hasn’t gone through it can tell the pain of +having to change your widow’s weeds for white muslin and spangles, and +put away your baby from your breast to go and slap cheesemongers’ shops +into furnished lodgings with a harlequin’s wand. As soon as I got over +the dreadful kind of numbness that came upon me in the first of my +troubles, I looked out for some one who would take care of the child; +for I need not tell you that you can’t leave an infant-in-arms in +unfurnished lodgings _without_ attendance, when you get black looks from +your landlady if you so much as ask for your fire to be poked once in an +evening in a friendly way, and much less to look after a child, which is +apt to be trying to the best of tempers. Well, sir, inquiring of one and +another, I heard of a very respectable elderly person who had seen +better days--and it does seem odd, but people connected with bringing up +children by hand always have seen better days. The elderly person lived +down Chelsea way, close to the water, which was considered healthy, and +next door but one to a cowkeeper--also considered healthy, especially if +predisposed to consumption.” + +“If you would only----” murmured Francis, despondently. + +“Which I am just coming to,” answered the _ci-devant_ columbine, again +with dignity. “The long and short of it is, I took my baby to the +respectable elderly person at Chelsea, and there he’s been ever since, +at seven shillings a week, which is a hard struggle sometimes now, +though light enough when I was engaged as columbine; but dancing has +made such progress, and unless you can take flying leaps from one side +of the stage to the other, a manager won’t look at you.” + +“But with regard to----” + +“Which I am about to explain,” continued Miss Willoughby, with unshaken +calmness. “It was at the respectable elderly person’s that I first met +Miss Turner; for my darling baby having learnt to call his nurse Nungey, +and taking so to her, and not taking to anybody else, and she so +attached to him, that she froze my very blood by talking of Battersea +Bridge in quite a meaning way, when I spoke of taking him away. Owing to +this and one circumstance and another, Harry has stopped at Chelsea till +he’s quite a big boy. So, of course, I very often go to see him--not +that he takes to me so much as he ought to do, being so wrapped up in +his Nungey. And one day, about three years ago, I went there quite +promiscuous, and found Harry walking up and down before the door with a +baby in his arms; and the nurse told me that she’d put an advertisement +in the paper, and the very day it was inserted a lady came to her--a +sweet-looking young creature, she said--and left this baby, which might +be going on for twelve months old. Well, the long and the short of it +is, that this was your cousin Susan’s baby; and going there off and on, +I saw a good deal of your cousin. But see her as much as you would, she +was so quiet and so reserved, that you never got anything like intimate +with her. At first she was dressed like a lady, and she had a pretty +little gold watch and chain, and many things that had cost money; but, +little by little, all these disappeared, and she seemed to get very +poor. One day, when I was there, it came out somehow that she was doing +plain needlework for one of the great cheap outfitters’ houses in the +City, and what a hard life it was, and, worse than hard--uncertain; so +then, knowing there were ‘extras’ wanted for the new piece, I proposed +to her that with my help she should try and get engaged. It would be +much lighter work than the plain sewing, and better pay. Well, at first +she was very much against it, but after a deal of persuasion she gave +way, and I got her the engagement. That was full five months ago; for +the piece had a long run. She had been lodging in one room at Chelsea +until then, for the sake of being near her boy, and she left that +lodging to come and share mine.” + +“And do you think she will go back to the old lodging?” + +“I doubt it. She seemed so uncertain, that I really don’t think she’d +made up her mind where to go.” + +“But she is likely to have gone straight to her child!” cried Francis. +“Will you give me the address of the old woman at Chelsea? Oh, I thank +you so much for giving me this clue. I _must_ find my poor girl now!” + +The sprite’s widow opened a little portfolio and wrote an address on a +scrap of paper, while Francis stood by eager to take it from her. + +“Do you know that there has been an advertisement appealing to my +cousin, in the columns of the “Times” newspaper, a hundred times within +the last two years?” + +“Dear! dear!” murmured the ballet-dancer; “and she going through so +much, with rich friends looking for her all the time. But, you see, poor +people can’t afford to take in a newspaper; and there might be only a +threepenny paper standing between a man and a million of money, and he +none the wiser.” + +She handed Francis the address, which was a very long one. And then she +gave him divers verbal directions, the gist of which was, that he was to +find a certain public-house called “The Man in the Moon,” and was then +to inquire of anybody for a certain street, and was to go a little way +farther and inquire again, thus accomplishing his journey by easy stages +and frequent inquiries. + +But Francis was much too full of hope to be dashed by any small +difficulties. He grasped the dancer’s hand in his heartiest way, and +left Brydges Street in impetuous haste. The hansom cabman, who met him +at the corner of Russell Street, and drove him thence to “The Man in the +Moon,” was a lucky individual, and went home rejoicing to the bosom of +his family. But after dismissing the cabman, Francis had to thread his +way through intricacies which would have been maddening in a hansom cab, +and were only to be overcome by repeated inquiries and frequent +reference to Miss Willoughby’s written direction. + +At last, however, while the bells were still ringing for afternoon +service, Francis Tredethlyn found the place, which was a damp little +street without any thoroughfare, called Pollard’s Row. Pollard’s Row, +with the summer sunlight on it, and given up entirely to the occupation +of one mongrel dog, which was lying with his head upon his forepaws, +snapping at imaginary flies, was a dreary place to contemplate; Francis +Tredethlyn troubled himself very little about the aspect of the +neighbourhood. He walked rapidly past the little row of houses until he +came to No. 17, which was occupied by the respectable elderly person, +otherwise Mrs. Clinnock. + +The elderly person made some faint show of a commercial character in the +shape of three very green pickle-bottles containing confectionery, all +more or less melted out of its normal mould by long exposure to the sun, +and a few gingerbread figures of weird and ghastly outline, supposed to +represent the human form. A tattered chintz curtain hung upon a limp +string, and made a background to these wares. Looking across this +curtain Francis Tredethlyn saw a woman sitting in the ruddy glow of the +fire, with a child in her lap, and knew by the beating of his heart that +he had found his cousin Susan. + +The door of No. 17 stood ajar. Francis pushed it open and went into the +passage. Three steps brought him to the door of the little room, which +was a compound of shop and parlour, with a slight flavour of bedroom. A +woman--a girlish creature still, but pale and worn-looking--was sitting +in a low nursing chair, with a child of four years old in her arms. Alas +for the handiwork of Sorrow, the destroyer! The soft brown hair, the +tender hazel eyes, alone remained of the rustic beauty which Francis +Tredethlyn remembered smiling at him upon the moorlands of his native +county. + +Ah, how much of his youth came suddenly back upon the Cornishman in that +moment of recognition! His mother’s face watching him as he left the +dear old homestead in the early summer morning to go to the dame-school; +happy haymakings on his father’s farm in the days when haymaking and +harvest time were two Arcadian festivals, and not nervous crises in the +life of a hardworking farmer, who may or may not be able to pay his +rent. His childhood came back to him with all its unconscious happiness, +and he fell on his knees by his cousin’s chair in a tumult of emotion. + +“Susy, my darling, my pet! at last, at last I have found you!” + +The boy slid from his mother’s arms, frightened by this tumultuous +stranger. Susan rose pale and trembling, and shrank away with her hands +spread before her face, as if even now she would have hidden herself +from her cousin. + +“Oh, Francis,” she cried, “don’t come near me--don’t look at me! Oh, +Heaven have pity on me! I have so prayed that none who ever knew me in +my childhood should see me now.” + +“But, my darling, why, why should you hide yourself from those who love +you so fondly?” + +She made him no direct answer, but covered her face with her hands and +sobbed aloud-- + +“Oh, my shame--my shame! Who will believe me when my father would not?” + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + + + + CHAPTER XXIX. + + ENTANGLEMENTS IN THE WEB. + + +Harcourt Lowther, calling at the stuccoed mansion in time for Mrs. +Tredethlyn’s afternoon tea, found a dark and dashing young lady +comfortably established in a luxurious amber damask nest against a +background of amber curtain, whose glowing tints were extremely becoming +to the young lady’s clear complexion. The two ladies were quite alone, +though Maude declared gaily that she had had crowds of people that +afternoon. + +“You generally come so late, Mr. Lowther,” she said. “Those were the +Dudley Boltons whom you met going out--nice people, fresh from the wolds +of Yorkshire, quite new to town, people who come once in ten years or +so, when there’s an International Exhibition, or something of that kind. +Isn’t it strange that people _can_ be so civilized living in the depths +of the country--read the last novel--see the last great picture--because +you see, nowadays, great pictures jog about the country like popular +prime ministers, and if Mahomet can’t go to the mountain in Trafalgar +Square, the mountain goes to meet Mahomet in his provincial town. But I +want to introduce you to Miss Desmond, the daughter of the late Colonel +Desmond, papa’s oldest friend. Julia dear, Mr. Lowther has heard me talk +of you perpetually, and you have heard a good deal of him,”--Mrs. +Tredethlyn blushed a little as she said this,--“so I expect you to be +intensely intimate immediately.” + +This introduction took place towards the close of June, nearly a month +after the Oaks day; and during the time that had elapsed since that +event, Harcourt Lowther, in his character of Mephistopheles, had found +Faust what is popularly called a very troublesome customer. Francis +Tredethlyn had a secret, and so far it had been a secret which Mr. +Lowther could neither penetrate nor turn to his own use. + +Yes, this simple-minded Cornishman, whose confiding candour had revealed +every feeling, and every shade of feeling, to his baneful companion, had +his secret now, and seemed to know very well how to keep it. + +There were days on which he had business which took him a little way out +of town; and Harcourt Lowther, pumping never so wisely, could pump no +further information out of the secret depths of his friend’s mind. He +had even proposed to accompany Francis on these mysterious excursions, +but his friendly offers had been met by a point-blank refusal. He had +ventured a little playful _badinage_; he had gone so far as to make an +occasional insinuation; but Francis Tredethlyn had repelled his hints +with the fiery indignation of a man whose tenderest and noblest feelings +are involved in the subject of his friend’s _persiflage_. + +“I know you get plenty of pleasant little witticisms of that kind out of +those flimsy-covered books Mr. Jeffs supplies you with; but hadn’t you +better keep them for Mrs. de Rothsay’s next evening party? They tell so +much better amongst people who understand the French phrases you’re so +fond of using. Some of your best things might as well be Greek, so far +as I am concerned,” Mr. Tredethlyn said, coolly. + +Mephistopheles shrugged his shoulders in mild deprecation of his pupil’s +impertinence. Faust was positively beginning to acquire the tone of good +society. He was learning to be insolent. + +Harcourt Lowther left no stone unturned in his endeavours to discover +the Cornishman’s secret, but unluckily there were not many stones to +turn: and when Mr. Lowther had pumped Francis, and pumped Francis’s +valet, who could give no clue whatever to his master’s conduct, there +remained nothing more to be done; unless, indeed, Mr. Lowther had cared +to resort to the private-inquiry system, and employ a shabby-genteel +person at three or four guineas a week to track the footsteps of Mr. +Tredethlyn. But this was a plan to which Harcourt Lowther could only +have resorted in the most desperate extremity. If possible, he wanted to +do dirty work _without_ soiling his fingers. The private-inquiry system +would have been a dangerous kind of machinery to put into +motion--dangerous even if successful--utterly fatal in the case of +failure; and it was just possible that the shabby-genteel person might +do his spiriting awkwardly, and make his watchfulness sufficiently +intrusive to arouse suspicion, and bring impetuous Francis Tredethlyn +down upon him in an avalanche of manly rage. + +“Pshaw!” thought Mr. Lowther, after a meditative and leisurely review of +his position. “It’s only a matter of so much time. ‘_Point de zèle_,’ +said Talleyrand; but he only meant, don’t be in a hurry. Your zealous +diplomatist may be a very valuable person, provided he knows now to keep +the secret of his earnestness; but your impatient diplomatist is a +certain failure. Yet there are people who _will_ gather their fruit +before it is ripe. When your true diplomatist comes to an awkward knot +in the airy network of his scheme, the best thing he can do is to sit +down quietly before the web until some accidental hand unravels the +entanglement. Chance is the unfailing friend of the schemer; but the +goddess is very capricious in her visiting routine, and there are stupid +creatures who won’t wait for a morning call. Luckily, I am not one of +them. I can afford to be patient. Maude is an angel; the Stuccoville +dinners are excellent, and the Stuccoville wines are my own selection; +and for the rest I do pretty well. Ecarté is a most agreeable game; +especially when one plays with a man who is half his time so +absent-minded as to forget to mark the king. Yes, dear Francis, I can +afford to wait for the lucky accident which is to put me in possession +of the clue to those little trips of yours, in hansom cabs, which you +prefer to pick up for yourself; thereby depriving your valet of any help +to be derived by an examination of the number of the vehicle, and a +subsequent chat with the driver.” + +Harcourt Lowther came very frequently to Mrs. Tredethlyn’s +drawing-rooms, now that she was to be found always accompanied by her +darling Julia, and entirely unembarrassed by his visits. He did not +always come at the orthodox hour, but would make his appearance between +eleven and twelve o’clock on a hopelessly rainy morning, with a new +book, or a roll of music, or something delightfully hideous in the way +of jelly-fish for Maude’s aquarium, or the last fashion in ferns or +orchids for Maude’s conservatories; and the back of Mrs. Tredethlyn’s +house broke out into ferneries and conservatories wherever the ingenuity +of a fashionable builder could find an excuse for carrying out Mrs. +Tredethlyn’s graceful ideas, and swelling Mr. Tredethlyn’s little +account. + +Mr. Lowther had contrived to make himself the friend of the house, so +there was always some very plausible excuse for visits at unorthodox +hours, and pleasant dawdling in Maude’s pretty morning-room; and +Stuccoville, furtively observant behind rose-coloured curtains in +opposite houses, took note of Mr. Lowther’s morning calls, and kept a +sharp account of the period that elapsed between his entrances and +exits; and all this time nothing could be more delicately deferential, +more tenderly respectful, than Harcourt Lowther’s manner to his friend’s +wife. By not one hazardous phrase, by not so much as a furtive glance, a +half-suppressed sigh, had he awakened Maude to a perception of possible +danger in this pleasant intimacy with a man who had once been her +affianced husband. No poisonous breath from the schemer’s false lips had +tarnished the purity of this bright young soul; but Stuccoville had +taken alarm already, and--in confidential converse in cosy comers of +ottomans, under the shadow of a tall vase of exotics, or a Parian +statuette--declared Mrs. Tredethlyn’s conduct to be “Positively +appalling, my dear; and that absurd west-country dolt of a husband +continues as blind as ever; and now she has taken a companion, my love. +You remember the companion in ‘Vanity Fair;’ that delightful Becky calls +her a sheep-dog; and you recollect Madame de Marneffe’s companion in +that horrible novel of Balzac’s, which my tiresome Georgiana found the +other morning at the bottom of a cupboard, in which her brother Charles +keeps his cricketing shoes and fishing-tackle, and was discovered by the +governess sitting on the ground positively devouring the book, and when +questioned said it was ‘Télémaque;’ but as I was about to tell you, my +dear, with regard to Mrs. T---- and Mr. H. L----!” and so the little +mole-hill gathered size, and gradually grew into a mountain. + +Harcourt Lowther and Mrs. Tredethlyn’s darling Julia were not slow to +arrive at a very friendly understanding. One morning spent in Miss +Desmond’s society was quite sufficient to show so subtle an observer as +Harcourt the real state of that young lady’s feelings with regard to her +patroness. Indeed, Julia did not take much trouble to conceal her +sentiments. Gay and animated one minute, darkly brooding the next, very +often captious and contradictory, sharply ironical, or sternly defiant, +she was in all things the very reverse of the paid companion who sets +her employer’s caprices against the amount of her salary, and gratefully +accepts any pleasures or advantages that fall in her way. Maude’s +natural forbearance was exaggerated by a remorseful consciousness that +all the luxuries and gaieties of her life were so many blessings which +she had in a manner stolen from Julia, and her tenderness towards Miss +Desmond was unbounded. But there were times when the Irish girl rebelled +even against this tenderness. + +“Do you think my poverty is an open wound, that you approach it so +shrinkingly?” she exclaimed impatiently, one day when Maude had broken +down in a delicate periphrasis, in which she tried to offer to pay her +friend’s milliner’s bill without wounding her friend’s pride. “Why don’t +you say at once, ‘My husband has thirty thousand a year, and a +twenty-pound note more or less is ineffably unimportant to me--while +_you_ must go bareheaded if your pride revolts against dirty tulle and +tumbled flowers?’ Pay me my salary, Mrs. Tredethlyn, when it becomes +due, and do not force your favours upon me! for I come of a proud race, +who are slow to perceive the difference between an unwelcome favour and +an uncalled-for insult. As for the unmade silk dresses which you have +tried so delicately to force upon me, under the pretence that the +colours are unbecoming to your complexion, you can parade your wealth +and your generosity by presenting them to your maid. I am _voué au noir_ +henceforward; and when you are tired of seeing my shabby-genteel black +moiré and Limerick lace in some obscure corner of your rooms, you have +only to give me a hint, and I will spend the evening in my own +apartment.” + +It was not often that Miss Desmond indulged in such a speech as this, or +perhaps even remorseful Maude could scarcely have endured her +companionship. She sometimes made herself very agreeable during those +idle rainy mornings in which Maude and Harcourt practised the old +concertante duets for flute and piano, or dawdled amongst the delicate +ferns with the crackjaw names in the little fernery that opened out of +the boudoir; or devised gorgeously incomprehensible illuminations for an +obscure verse in Malachi. Julia could never be charming, for the power +to charm is a gift _sui generis_, and does not necessarily go along with +versatile accomplishments or intellectual superiority; but she could be +an amusing and agreeable companion whenever she pleased to exhibit +herself in that character, and she did so please very frequently; for it +is so much less trouble to be agreeable than to be disagreeable, that +the most persevering sulker is apt to give way under the weary burden of +his own bad temper. But let Miss Desmond be ever so vivacious, or ever +so delightful, Harcourt Lowther never lost sight of one fact,--and that +was the fact of Julia’s unappeased and unappeasable hatred of Maude +Tredethlyn. Stuccoville, which was omniscient of everything, knew that +Mr. Tredethlyn had been engaged to Julia, and had jilted her in order to +marry Maude; and from Stuccoville Mr. Lowther obtained the clue to the +Irish girl’s feelings. + +“A little genuine feminine malice might be rather a useful element, if I +can set it working unconsciously for my benefit. Your amateur’s +assistance is generally a dismal failure; but I really think this Miss +Desmond might help me. She is so very clever--and so intensely +spiteful.” + +So one morning when Harcourt Lowther happened to find Julia alone in the +morning-room, he took the opportunity of being quite confidential upon +the subject of Mr. Tredethlyn’s dissipation. + +“He dined from home yesterday? and the day before? Ah, to be sure, I +dined with him the day before,” said Mr. Lowther, with a deprecating +sigh. He did not attempt to conceal the fact of his own participation in +Francis Tredethlyn’s pleasures; but he contrived in the most subtle +manner to make it understood that he accompanied Francis in the +character of a guardian angel, a protecting spirit in modern costume, +with an arresting hand for ever extended to snatch the sinner from the +verge of the precipice. Miss Desmond shrugged her shoulders +disdainfully. + +“I don’t think Mrs. Tredethlyn values her husband’s society sufficiently +to feel his neglect very keenly,” she said; “she seems perfectly happy.” + +Yes, it was quite true; Maude seemed very happy, though her husband +spent the best part of his time away from home, and was gloomy and ill +at ease in her society. Harcourt Lowther’s hints had done their work, +and the breach was very wide between husband and wife. Francis believed +that his presence was odious to Maude. Maude imagined that home +pleasures and simple domestic enjoyments were tame and insipid for +Francis. And it had all been so easily done! Harcourt had only to make a +few careless speeches about his friend. + +“You see, my dear Mrs. Tredethlyn, a man of our dear Frank’s temperament +requires out-door amusements--hunting, and shooting, and racing, and all +their agreeable concomitants in the way of meet breakfasts and +uproarious dinners. A man with Frank’s animal spirits must have more +boisterous pleasures than can be procured in a drawing-room, however +charming--or amongst women, however delightful. There are some men who +do _not_ care for the society of ladies; very excellent fellows in their +way, but men in whose minds poetry and music, beautiful scenery, +exquisite sentiments, grand ideas, are all classed under one head as +‘doosid bores.’ You know the style of man who calls everything except +his horse and his dog a ‘doosid bore.’ I don’t say that Tredethlyn is +_quite_ that sort of man, but he is not a domestic animal.” + +Mr. Lowther--sitting amongst a chaos of feminine litter, snipping out +painted birds and flowers with a pair of fairy-like scissors for Maude’s +_potichomanie_, looked the very incarnation of all that is domestic and +devoted to the fair sex. Perhaps he fully estimated the advantage of the +contrast between his own character and that of the men he had been +describing. + +Mrs. Tredethlyn gave a little sigh. + +“And Frank _used_ to be so very domestic; and so dotingly fond of +Floss,” she said, looking pensively at a mouse-coloured Skye terrier, +whose cold nose reposed in the pink palm of her pretty hand. “However, +we contrive to do very well without him, don’t we, Flossy Possy? and we +shouldn’t care if he went to all the races in that dreadful calendar, +and never, never came near his own house at all, should we, Flossy +Possy?” + +Harcourt Lowther, looking up furtively from the covert of his auburn +eyelashes, snipped a bird into mincemeat, and tightened his mouth until +the thin lips were scarcely visible. + +“That nonsense sounds rather like pique,” he thought. + +“Can she care for the fellow? A handsome boor, who would scarcely know +the difference between Beethoven’s ‘Moonlight’ and ‘Rule, +Britannia!’--can she have the faintest sentiment of affection for such a +man as that, when----” + +Mr. Lowther’s self-esteem finished the sentence,-- + +“When she knows me, and can contrast my infinite graces and +accomplishments with the boor’s defects?” + +But Mr. Lowther, looking at his position in all its aspects, could not +do otherwise than perceive that the provincial rust was gradually +wearing off the farmer’s son, and that Francis Tredethlyn was learning +to hold his own amongst men who had played cricket in the Eton meads, +and paced the grand old cloisters and quadrangles of Oxford and +Cambridge. Association is the best schoolmaster; and even in Bohemia, a +man who is blessed with a fair amount of intelligence must learn +something. + +There were times when Harcourt Lowther frowned darkly as he brooded over +his cards, and began to think that the game was not such an easy one to +win, after all. But he played patiently, notwithstanding; and, true to +his faith in the saving help of Chance, he waited for the goddess to +look over his shoulder, and point with her inspired finger to the trump +which should win him the final trick. + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + + + + CHAPTER XXX. + + THE TWO ANTIPHOLI. + + +It was while the schemer was waiting that an event occurred which had +some influence upon the current of his life. + +His elder brother, heir to all that Robert Lowther, of Lowther Hall, +Hampshire, had to leave, and expectant heir to the more important +possessions of a very wealthy maiden aunt, returned unexpectedly from +Belgium, where he had been established for some time as a member of the +_Corps Diplomatique_, and dropped unannounced into Mr. Lowther’s lodging +while that gentleman was lounging over his breakfast. + +The meeting between the two brothers was not remarkable for its +enthusiasm. Roderick Lowther strolled lazily into the room, dropped into +an easy-chair, and indulged in a long leisurely stretch and a loud yawn +before he addressed his astonished relative. + +“Didn’t expect to see me yet awhile, did you, old boy? Been travelling +all night, and feel as if my bones were not so much bones as +rheumatism,--some fellow says something like that in a book, doesn’t he? +Came over in the _Baron Osy_; very bad passage, jolting and tumbling +about all night, waves mountains high, as people say in books. So you’ve +cut the line, dear boy, and are living on the proceeds of your +commission, I suppose? The warrior blood of the Lowthers who fought at +Bosworth and Flodden seems to have lost a little of its fiery quality in +filtering through three centuries of country gentlemen. There was a +Lowther who distinguished himself at bloody Malplaquet, by the bye, and +another who was with young General Wolfe on the heights of Quebec. But +we’ve done with all that nowadays. We are peacefully disposed, and sell +out on the earliest opportunity; and we steal a march on our beloved +brother, and come home on the quiet to cultivate our maiden aunt.” + +“That’s a lie,” replied Harcourt, very coolly. “I haven’t been near her +since I came home.” + +“What did you come home for then?” asked the other. _“You came for +something.”_ + +The two men looked at each other. They were very much alike. There was +the same steelly light in the blue eyes, the same tight contraction of +the thin lips. The elder looked at the younger with a glance of shrewd +inquiry; the younger looked back sulky defiance. + +“Come,” said the traveller, after a second leisurely stretch and a +second prolonged yawn, “what is it, then, the little game? Say, my +friend. You didn’t sell out of her Majesty’s service without a motive, +and you didn’t come home without a motive. By Jove! you never did +anything in your life without a motive. You are a schemer, my dear +Harcourt. The schemer is born, and not made, and he must obey his +instincts. Dear boy, I know your organization, and in these days of +physiological science no man can keep himself quite dark. Iago would +have been a failure if Othello had studied his Lavater. Be candid, +Harcourt, and tell me what noble vessel, laden with the spoils of a new +Peru, flaunts her white sails upon the wind, and invites the attention +of the pirate.” + +“You are so deuced confiding yourself, that you’ve a right to demand +another fellow’s confidence,” Harcourt responded, moodily. “When I want +your help, I’ll tell you my secrets. That has been _your_ way of +managing matters, I believe.” + +“My Harcourt bears malice!” exclaimed Roderick. “Antipholus of Ephesus +reproaches Antipholus of Syracuse. Dear boy, I suppose it’s our +misfortune to be too much alike. Perhaps, if you won’t give me your +confidence, you will at least oblige me with a chop. There was an +atmosphere of smoky chimneys and warm train-oil on board the _Baron_ +which incapacitated me for breakfast.” + +Mr. Lowther the elder possessed himself of the teapot, and appropriated +his brother’s breakfast-cup, while Harcourt rang the bell and gave an +order for additional rolls and chops. + +“I didn’t know you were coming to England,” Mr. Lowther the younger +said, after a pause, in which he had stared moodily at his brother. + +“I suppose not,” answered the other; “and I can’t say that the +heartiness of your welcome is very encouraging to the returning +prodigal. However, as I have not been in these dominions for the last +three years or more, and as my father and I are not the best +friends,--there’s nothing so economical for a parent as a long-standing +quarrel with all his children, by the way,--I shall look to you, my dear +Harcourt, for any friendly offices I may require. I have three months’ +leave of absence, and I have not--_le sou_. I come to England to +recuperate, as brother Jonathan has it. I want to get on the blind side +of my beloved aunt to the tune of a few hundreds; and I want to marry an +heiress.” + +“Oh,” said Harcourt, thoughtfully, “you want to marry an heiress?” + +“Yes; can you help me to do it?” + +“I think not.” + +“Humph! perhaps if I could make it worth your while to assist me you’d +tell another story. However, you can introduce me to some nice people, I +suppose?” + +Harcourt nodded moodily. + +“And I must look up my own old set. Not that I know many people, for I +lived such a hide-and-seek sort of life when I was in England. Can you +get me rooms in this house? We can commonize, you know. I left my +portmanteaus on board the _Baron_. I suppose there’s a boots, or a +somebody of the scout species appertaining to this establishment, who +can take a cab, and fetch them for me?” + +Thus unceremoniously did Antipholus of Syracuse establish himself in the +abode of his ungracious brother. Frankenstein, pursued by the monster of +his creation, could scarcely have seemed more ill at ease than Harcourt +Lowther under the infliction of his brother’s society. Was it that these +men were too much alike? Did Harcourt think that the keen eyes of his +brother would follow every thread in the intricate network of his +scheme, and the subtle brain of his brother would apply itself to +plotting against him? + +But the coolness so apparent in Harcourt’s reception of the returning +wanderer made no impression whatever on that gentleman. Roderick Lowther +stretched his long legs upon his brother’s hearth-rug, and smoked his +brother’s cigars, with a serene indifference as to his brother’s +feelings. + +“If you dine anywhere to-day you can take me with you,” he said, +blandly; “and to-morrow I’ll introduce you to a splendid set of fellows +at the ‘Travellers’.’ You haven’t thought of an heiress yet, I suppose?” + +“No.” + +“Ah, you’ll hit upon something in that way presently, I dare say, if you +run your mind’s eye over your visiting list. I’m in no hurry. Three +months is a small eternity in these days of railroads and photography.” + +“And you really would marry?” said Harcourt again, very thoughtfully. + +“Really would? Of course I would, if I could get the chance of making an +advantageous match, and propitiate my aunt Dorothea by the sacrifice. +You know how bent the prudent old lady has always been on my making a +great marriage, and restoring the forgotten glories of the Lowthers. +Yes, Harcourt, I come prepared for victory, and I trust to your +brotherly friendship to help me to see and conquer.” + +“Humph! By the bye, I suppose you have heard nothing of----” + +“Not a word,” answered Roderick, rather hastily; “I know what you’re +going to talk about, and as that’s rather an unpleasant subject to me, +we may as well agree to avoid it. I wrote a letter, candid, explanatory, +and so forth; promising to do what I considered my duty. I don’t profess +to be a generous man, and I freely acknowledge that I’m a very poor one; +so the modest annual sum, which I considered my duty, was----well, _very +modest_! However, the letter was unanswered. People drop through, you +see,” concluded Mr. Lowther the elder, blowing away a slender puff of +blue vapour, as if he had been blowing away a troublesome subject; “and +when people do, of their own election, drop through, I can’t see that +it’s any fellow’s duty to dig them up again. _You_ haven’t heard +anything, I suppose?” + +“Not a word.” + +“Fortunate for you! Sometimes that sort of person fastens on to one’s +relations. However, as I observed before, we’ll agree to avoid the +subject. Suppose we discuss your affairs?” + +“I had much rather we did not.” + +“Of course, dear boy; but as I am candidly disposed myself, I don’t mean +to be kept in the dark by the most saturnine of brothers who ever sulked +in the face of an amiable relative. _You_ used to be engaged to an +heiress--something in the Moorgate-Street line--Australian merchandise, +wasn’t it? a Miss Hillersdon, or Hillary, eh, dear boy? There used to be +something of that sort on the cards, I believe?” + +“There used to be, but there has ceased to be for the last twelve +months. Will that do for you?” + +“Ah, Miss Hillersdon--or Hillary--has jilted you, I suppose?” + +“She has.” + +“And the man she has married----” + +“Is my very good friend, the happy possessor of a charming wife and a +large fortune, and the man at whose house I dine to-day.” + +“Oh!” exclaimed Roderick Lowther, lengthening the ejaculation to its +extremest capacity of extension--“Oh, I think I begin to understand your +policy. Miss Hillary has married a rich man, and you are intimate with +the husband and _au mieux_ with the wife. The husband is a sickly +fellow--consumptive--apoplectic, eh, dear boy?” + +“The husband is something over six feet high, and has the shoulders of a +lifeguardsman; and, if it were not for his dissipated habits, might live +to be ninety.” + +“Ah, if it were not for his dissipated habits. And you are his intimate +friend? My dear Harcourt, what a very transparent game you are playing! +and what a consummate fool you must be if you supposed that I shouldn’t +see through it! Why not a bond of union between us--all for one, and one +for all, like Dumas’s musketeers? Help me to find an heiress, and I’ll +help you _auprès de_ Mrs. ----, what’s the lady’s name, by the bye?” + +Harcourt Lowther allowed this last piece of information to be screwed +out of him, and parted with it as grudgingly as he had parted with the +rest. It is not a pleasant thing when you are playing a very difficult +game with the odds against you, to have an inconvenient brother swooping +down upon you and insisting on looking over your hand. + +There was no affection between these two brothers; the likeness which +they bore to each other, morally as well as physically, seemed to have a +blighting influence upon their relations. They knew each other, and they +distrusted each other. Perhaps it would have been scarcely too much to +say they hated each other. + +But they went out to dinner together nevertheless, and Harcourt +smilingly introduced his brother to Mrs. Tredethlyn and Miss Desmond. +They had plenty of time to grow quite intimate in the drawing-room while +they were waiting for Francis, who came in, flushed with a hurried +toilet, at ten minutes to eight. He had been absent upon one of his +mysterious excursions a little way out of town. + +Roderick Lowther was received very graciously by the two ladies, and +cordially welcomed by Mr. Tredethlyn. Harcourt, watching his brother +ensconced in a nook of Maude’s favourite ottoman, and discoursing at his +ease upon Belgian notabilities, was troubled by dark misgivings of +danger. + +“I must find the fellow a quarry for himself,” he thought, “or he’ll be +trying to stalk my game. He asks me to introduce him to an eligible +_parti_ as coolly as if life were a five-act comedy, with the +traditional heiress always waiting to fall a prey to the traditional +adventurer. An heiress! in these days of marvellous commercial successes +there must be such things as heiresses. But the question is where to +look for them.” + +One of Mr. Tredethlyn’s pompous retainers opened the drawing-room door +at this moment and announced-- + +“Mr. and Miss Grunderson.” + +“Egad!” thought Harcourt Lowther, “there’s the solution of my +difficulty. Why not Miss Grunderson? Miss Grunderson is an heiress, or +ought to be, if there is stability in any part of the commercial +universe.” + +A young lady with a very rosy face, a young lady decidedly inclined to +that quality which in the fair sex is elegantly entitled _embonpoint_, a +young lady who was surrounded by surging flounces of pink areophane, +dotted about with more pink rosebuds and larger full-blown roses than +were ever worn by any young lady with a judicious recollection of the +sweeps on Mayday, bounced into the room, and bounced up to Mrs. +Tredethlyn; while an elderly gentleman, who was evidently the young +lady’s papa, beamed mildly at the company across an enormous expanse of +embroidered shirt-front and black waistcoat. + +But in the network that Harcourt Lowther has woven Miss Grunderson is +destined to be considerably entangled, and deserves to be introduced +more ceremoniously in a fresh chapter. + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + + + + CHAPTER XXXI. + + THE DIPLOMATIST’S POLICY. + + +That ponderous Mr. Grunderson, who plunged heavily down upon Maude’s +central ottoman, a miraculous combination of upholstery and +floriculture--that shining bald-headed Mr. Grunderson, who sat placidly +grinning at the company, and addressed his hostess as “Mum”--had begun +life as a market-gardener; and, had Mrs. Tredethlyn been born some +twenty years earlier, would have been proud to supply her with azaleas +and camellias for the decoration of the ottoman upon which he was now +sitting. The march of progress, and the accompanying march of bricks and +mortar, had driven before them the cabbages and strawberry-beds, the +cucumber-frames and young plantations of evergreens, by the cultivation +of which Mr. Grunderson and his forefathers had lived comfortably upon +one-o’clock dinners of fat bacon and indigestible dumplings, with +occasional varieties of butcher’s meat, thinking themselves passing rich +when their ledgers showed a profit of two or three hundred pounds at the +end of the year. + +The march of civilization, or rather the march of the myrmidons of that +unreasoning despot, that implacable ruler, whom women call Fashion, +always pushing westward, had contrived to push Mr. Grunderson’s gardens +off the face of the earth, and in so doing had set a Pactolus flowing +steadily into Mr. Grunderson’s pocket. The wealth poured in upon him +with a rapidity which was like nothing but a fairy tale. That heroic +Jack of the nursery story--who, by the bye, seems to have had no +surname--never looked in more amazement on the bean-stalk that shot into +the very skies in a single night, than did the honest market-gardener at +the stuccoed district which had arisen, seven or eight stories and a +campanello tower high, on the fields where he remembered execrating the +slugs on dewy mornings a few years before. Where a prairie of bright red +stocks had perfumed all the summer air with spicy odours, a square of +stately mansions stared grimly at each other, and prime ministers’ +carriages rolled with meteor lamps through the midnight darkness. Where +ragged children, and gaunt sunburnt women, in blucher-boots and with +indescribable bonnets balanced on their freckled noses, had weeded +strawberry-beds for a pitiful sixpence a day, duchesses trailed their +silken trains and wearied of the rolling hours after the approved manner +of their kind in the pages of the poets and romancers. The +transformation was as perfect as it had been rapid; and instead of the +cabbages and cabbage-roses, the cucumber-frames and hothouse flowers of +his youth and early manhood, Mr. Grunderson found himself, at fifty +years of age, proprietor of ground-rents that made him a millionaire. He +had only one child, a daughter, who had been educated for some fifty +pounds a year at a seminary for young ladies, in which she had been +cruelly snubbed on account of her father’s cabbages, and who was now +determined to revenge herself on the companions of her blighted youth by +the splendour of her womanhood. Led by this young lady, who was blessed +with an energetic temperament and imperturbable good humour, Mr. +Grunderson found himself, always more or less independently of his own +agency, going through the complete formula of fashionable life according +to his daughter Rosa’s notion of that formula; which notion was +extremely variable, and took its colour from the last acquaintance to +whom the lively heiress was pleased to attach herself. + +The very last just now happened to be Maude Tredethlyn, about whom Rosa +was ready to go off into raptures at any moment, and whom she always +spoke of as “a dear,” “a love,” or “a darling.” But there was a warm +womanly heart beating under Rosa’s fine dresses, and her raptures had +more meaning in them than the raptures of enthusiastic young ladies are +apt to have. She attached herself so effectually to Maude that Mrs. +Tredethlyn was fain to forget, or at any rate to forgive, the occasional +lapses in her grammar, the unpleasant warmth of her fat little hands, +which always came flopping down on the hands of her companion when she +was enthusiastic, and the shadow of vulgarity which is so apt to +accompany the sunshine of low-born liveliness. + +Harcourt Lowther took an early opportunity to inform his elder brother +that the young lady in pink areophane was an heiress, and an heiress +well worthy the cultivation of any enterprising young diplomatist. +Roderick was not slow to take the hint, but he was a great deal too much +of a diplomatist to attempt any obvious angling for this rich prize. He +exerted all his powers of fascination in order to make himself agreeable +to Mrs. Tredethlyn, and he did not address so much as one syllable of +the most commonplace civility to the market-gardener’s daughter; the +consequence of which little manœuvre was, that as Rosa was sitting next +to Maude all the evening, she listened open-mouthed to every word he +uttered, and when she departed in her papa’s three-hundred-guinea +chariot--the market-gardener had insisted on possessing the traditional +lemon-coloured chariot with hammer-cloth, and powdered retainers, which +he had beheld and admired in his boyhood--she carried Roderick Lowther’s +image away with her. + +It must be acknowledged, however, that it was no uncommon occurrence for +Miss Grunderson to carry the image of some tolerably good-looking and +passably well-mannered young man away from any festal gathering at which +she happened to find herself. The good-humoured Rosa had a habit of +falling desperately in love with any eligible person whom she +encountered either in public or private life, who did anything to make +himself notorious, or wore his hair long enough to be entitled a Being. +A long list of Beings had occupied that sentimental caravansary which +Miss Grunderson called her heart. She had been in love with all the +poets, from the Laureate to Mr. Tupper; with all the novelists, from the +great Sir Edward to the newest fledged of Mr. Mudie’s popularities; and +I fear she often fell in love with angels unawares in the shape of +feminine romancers who were pleased to hide their gentle sex under +masculine nomenclature. She had been in love--fathoms deep--with Lord +Palmerston, Signor Mario, Sir Edwin Landseer, and Mr. Charles Mathews. +She was wont to keep the three-hundred-guinea chariot waiting in Pall +Mall for an hour at a stretch while she hunted Mr. Graves and his +assistants for the last new portrait of her last new idol; and her room +was like a good Catholic’s chapel,--hung with the engraved effigies of +an army of saints. + +It was a very pure flame which burnt before so many shrines, and a very +harmless one; and perhaps if Mr. Lowther the elder had known Rosa +Grunderson’s little idiosyncrasies, he would not have felt quite so +complacently triumphant in the consciousness that her round grey eyes +had been fixed upon him all the evening with the fond gaze of +hero-worship. Harcourt contrived to swell this triumph by artful little +brotherly compliments, as the two young men walked Londonwards under the +starlit summer sky, smoking their regalias, and talking as men about +town do talk under those sublime stars. Sentimental Rosa was gazing at +those luminous unknown worlds from the covert of the pinkest curtains in +Stuccoville, and thinking about _Him_! Rosa’s last adoration was always +mysteriously alluded to under cover of a personal pronoun. Her +admiration for Roderick Lowther was multiplied a hundredfold by the +young diplomatist’s disregard of her. Poor Rosa had been accustomed to +be made the object of what, in the argotic parlance of her age, she +called “a dead set,” on account of her papa’s ground-rents; and she was +inclined to imagine Mr. Lowther the noblest and most disinterested of +mankind because he did not commence this “dead set” immediately after +being introduced to her. + +“I wonder whether he knows that I’m _the_ Miss Grunderson?” she thought, +as she looked up at those romantic stars so familiar to her in her +Byron. “Of course he does, though, ’Pa is _so_ different from the rest +of society, that people always know there’s some reason for his being +where he is, and they’re not very long guessing that the reason is +money. Will anybody ever want to marry me for my own sake, I wonder? Ah, +how I wish the Marquis of Westminster would fall in love with me! _He_ +couldn’t want pa’s ground-rents.” + +Thus the maiden mused in her bower, while Roderick Lowther, encouraged +by his junior, talked complacently of his conquest. + +“She’s the simplest little thing in Christendom,” he said; “simpler +than--anybody I ever met in my life. The disinterested game is the dodge +in that quarter, dear boy. Do you remember how Frederic Soulié’s _Lion_ +treats the little shopkeeper’s daughter? First with the elegant devotion +of a fashionable Romeo, then with the _brusquerie_ of a Benedick or a +Petruchio. _Lise Laloine_ died under the treatment; but I don’t think +the plump Rosa is made of quite such ethereal stuff. _La Petite_ is +sentimental, and wants to be loved for herself alone; ‘O, wert thou in +the cauld blast!’ ‘And long he mourned, the Lord of Burleigh;’ and that +sort of thing. She shall have it, the darling innocent! Tennyson and +Owen Meredith by the _kilo_, disinterested devotion by the bushel. But +oh, my Harcourt, do not lure your loving brother into the quagmire of +delusive wealth! Make sure that our simple-looking Grunderson does not +hide the cloven hoof of insolvency under the golden fleece in which he +drapes himself: those simple-looking men generally fail for half a +million. I like your Mrs. Tredethlyn, by the bye; she is very pretty and +very elegant; but, to be candid, my dear Harcourt--a brother ought to be +candid, you know, even at the risk of being unpleasant--I fancy there is +more in the husband than you imagine. A man with such a chest must have +some solidity in his composition. If I am anything of a physiologist, it +is not in that man’s organization to be made a fool of. Ah, I see you +don’t care to talk about it; you like to keep your own secrets, and play +your own game without backers or advisers. So be it. For myself, I am of +an open disposition; I like to talk of my own affairs when they go +smoothly, and to drop them when they take the crooked course. I don’t +suppose Napoleon the First was very fond of talking about Waterloo. He +forgot _that_ little skirmish, you may depend; and talked of Arcola and +Lodi, the Pyramids, Austerlitz, Wagram, and Auerstadt. I dare say Mr. +Merry holds his tongue about those two-thousand-guinea colts that +_didn’t_ win the Derby. People are _not_ eloquent about their failures. +I shall look up my old aunt early to-morrow morning; and after that, if +you have any excuse for calling on Mrs. Tredethlyn, I shall be glad to +accompany you. Unless I am very much at fault in feminine psychology, +Miss Grunderson will drop in upon her friend, to discuss my bearish +behaviour, on the earliest opportunity. Nothing impresses a sentimental +young person so favourably as downright rudeness. The heroine in a +lady’s novel always adores the man who snubs her.” + +Thus argued the diplomatist by profession, strolling Strand-wards in the +starlight; while the diplomatist by organization listened quietly, and +thought his own thoughts as regarded this grand conquest, of which his +kinsman was so proud. Harcourt Lowther was not apt to resent the +insolent _insouciance_, the calm assurance of superiority, with which +his senior treated him, and indeed had treated him from that early +boyhood in which the lads had played together at Eton. But the wrongs +that rankle deeply in a man’s breast are sometimes those which he +endures silently. Harcourt believed that his own prospects had been +sacrificed to the advancement of Roderick; and he was not sorry when the +elder son went wild, and turned his back as coolly upon his father as if +he had never been the pampered favourite of weak love, the all-absorbing +drain upon a limited income. In every way Roderick had fared better than +his brother. Lowther Hall, surrounded by park and farm-lands that +constituted an estate of some three hundred acres, might not be worth +very much to a man of large ideas and lofty inspirations; but whatever +it was worth, it was tightly entailed upon the heir of the Lowthers, and +not so much as a game-keeper’s cottage or a scrap of meadow-land was +reserved for the luckless junior. Mrs. Lowther had been mistress of a +small fortune, but that had been spent on the education of the two young +men,--Harcourt in this matter, as in all others, going to the wall; for +his University career had been cut short in order that his brother’s +debts might be paid, and that extravagant gentleman be enabled to face +the big-wigs of his college without fear of clamorous creditors, and +read at leisure for a degree which he was too lazy to succeed in +getting. After this Harcourt’s prospects had again been sacrificed, and +the young barrister, unable to live at the bar, had been fain to accept +an ensign’s commission; while Roderick, pushed into the diplomatic world +by a desperate effort of family interest, exhibited his handsome face at +the Prussian Court, and squandered every farthing that he could screw +out of his father’s slender purse. When the purse had become as empty as +it well could, there had been the usual remonstrances, the usual bad +feeling which is likely to arise between an utterly selfish and +unprincipled young man and the father who is no longer able to be of any +use to him, and who takes the liberty of resenting the extravagance +which has involved his later life in difficulties. + +Besides the advantages obtained from his father’s partiality, Roderick +Lowther had been the favourite of a maiden aunt of miserly habits and +independent fortune, who had condescended to give him her name at the +baptismal font, and who had never bestowed on him anything else--except, +indeed, a neat cloth-bound copy of “The Dairyman’s Daughter,” presented +to the lad one birthday, and promptly disposed of at a rag-and-bone shop +in the High Street of Harrow for the small sum of fourpence. But +although Miss Dorothea Burnett had not been very liberal in her +donations to her favourite nephew during her lifetime, it was supposed +that, after her departure from this world, the young man would reap the +reward of occasional dutifully-worded letters and affected deference to +her wishes, and that the reward would be a very substantial one; for +Miss Burnett had contrived to swell her own little fortune by many stray +windfalls in the way of legacies from relatives, whose regard her busy +married sister Mrs. Lowther had neglected to cultivate. Beyond this, the +maiden lady had bought small but profitable tenements, and had dabbled a +little in shares; and she had watched her small investments with an +intelligence, and nursed them with a tenderness, which her stockbroker +had admiringly declared to be a credit to the sex she adorned by her +commercial acumen. + +So Roderick Lowther, finding his younger brother on the field, was +alarmed by the idea that he might have been undermined in this +direction, and was by no means inclined to lose any time before +presenting himself to his spinster aunt. He brushed and curled his amber +whiskers with more than usual circumspection, therefore, on the morning +after the dinner at Mrs. Tredethlyn’s; and walking through Covent +Garden, on his way to Miss Burnett’s Bloomsbury hermitage, he expended +sixpence on a hothouse flower to put in the button-hole of the dark-blue +coat which he wore under a flimsy outer garment of pale grey. He had +dressed himself very carefully, for he knew that, in spite of the maiden +lady’s lectures on the subject of prudence, her feminine eye was +fascinated by the elegant frivolities which she affected to disapprove. + +Miss Burnett occupied a very big house in the dullest street in +Bloomsbury--a dismal _cul de sac_, in which there was almost always an +elderly organ-grinder playing “Home, sweet home,” or the “Old +Hundredth,” with a little group of squalid children gathered round him. +The big house smelt like a tomb, and was almost as rarely opened as if +it had been one; for the butcher-boy who brought Miss Burnett’s +mutton-chop, or the half-pound of steak or three-quarters of liver, upon +which Miss Burnett’s servant was wont to make her repast, handed his +wares across the area-gate, and exchanged no word of comment with the +grim damsel who received them, knowing very well that the lady of the +house sat at her favourite window in the front parlour, with her open +Bible before her, and a watchful eye upon the outer world, which some +sentimental Christians might have thought scarcely consistent with so +much piety. + +The grim damsel who admitted Roderick Lowther to Miss Burnett’s darksome +abode relaxed her ordinary sternness of visage into something faintly +resembling a smile as she recognized her mistress’s nephew. + +“Your aunt has been very ill since you were last here, Mr. Lowther,” the +woman said, in answer to Roderick’s inquiry. “She was very bad with her +asthma all the winter; but the warm spring weather brought her round +again.” + +“Yes,” thought the young man, “the spring weather always does bring her +round,--and always will, I suppose, till I am dead and in my grave.” + +He was ushered into the dining-room while this irreverent idea was in +his mind; and the next minute he was seated opposite to his aunt, +inquiring tenderly about her asthma. The dining-room was very dismal. +There was more mahogany furniture and brown damask than is compatible +with the smallest ray of cheerfulness, and the walls were rendered +ghastly by some hideous preparations painted in asphaltum, and +exhibiting gigantic cracks that looked like gory, yawning +wounds,--preparations which, on account of their smoky nature and +revolting choice of subject, were supposed to be the work of the old +masters. + +“I am very glad to see you, my dear Roderick,” said Miss Burnett, +gravely; “as glad as I can be about anything in this carnal life,” added +the old lady, whose spirits had been revived that morning by a rise of +one and a quarter per cent. in the value of her pet investment. “But we +are taught not to rejoice, Roderick, except in that which----Is that a +hothouse flower, my dear?” inquired Miss Burnett, looking sharply at the +myosotis in her nephew’s button-hole. “Dear, dear! what an extravagant +age it is! You are looking very well, my dear Roderick. I dare say you +are what a worldly-minded person would call very handsome; but we must +try to remember that we are all worms,” murmured the old lady with a +doleful sigh; for she took the gloomy view of things which is so common +to some people who read that Gospel which is all life and colour and +brightness, full of the happy faces of merry-makers at a bridal +festival, and little children gathering round a favourite Teacher’s +knees, radiant with sudden rejoicings in mourning households, the dead +restored to smile upon the living. There is something strange in the +dull grey tint which some worshippers are able to infuse into a story +that a painter can hardly read without feeling the tropical heat of a +meridian sun, the perfume of a thousand lilies, the spicy odours of the +feathery palms, and the free dash of Galilee’s blue waves about the prow +of a fisherman’s frail bark sailing gaily under an Eastern sky. Surely +the richness of colour with which the Catholic Church invests the +Christian faith is, after all, only the natural attribute of a religion +which arose amid the splendour and beauty of the Holy Land! + +“I hope, my dear Roderick,” said the maiden lady, very solemnly, “that +while absent in those idolatrous foreign lands, you kept the promise +which you gave me before leaving England.” + +“My dear aunt,” murmured the young man, who had quite forgotten having +made any promise whatever to his pious relative, and was painfully +mystified by this address, “I assure you that I----” + +He would have broken down here, but the lady came to his rescue. + +“Don’t prevaricate, Roderick!” she exclaimed, sternly. “Did you, or did +you not, enter a Roman Catholic place of worship during your sojourn +among the high priests of Baal? Did you, or did you not, sit under one +of those idolatrous worshippers of stocks and stones? And oh, that I +should live to see candlesticks on the altar of a church in this very +neighbourhood!” cried Miss Burnett, with a sudden burst of indignation; +“and to hear snuffling, which I at first attributed to a cold in the +head, but afterwards ascertained to be the wicked workings of ROME!” + +The stanch Dorothea paused for a few moments to recover her indignation, +and then tackled her nephew once more. + +“You promised me, before going to Belgium, that you would not, however +tempted, enter a Roman Catholic place of worship,” she said. + +“And I did _not_, my dear aunt,” answered Roderick, promptly; “I give +you my word of honour as a gentleman.” “Nor any other place of worship,” +thought the heir, as his aunt nodded approvingly. + +And then there was a little more talk, chiefly taking the form of a +catechism, which Mr. Lowther went through triumphantly, since his +answers to the old lady’s inquiries were shaped in accordance with his +knowledge of what was likely to please his aunt, rather than with any +reference to actual fact. But a man must do a good many mean things when +he devotes himself to the cultivation of a narrow-minded maiden aunt, +for the chance of inheriting small tenements and first-preference bonds +in flourishing railway companies. Roderick Lowther breathed a long sigh +of relief when he left the house that smelt like a tomb behind him, +after drinking a glass of his aunt’s dry sherry, which act of devotion +was in itself no small penance. + +He hailed a hansom as soon as he was safely beyond ken of the observant +spinster, and was rattled back to his brother’s lodgings, where he found +Harcourt pondering moodily over the “Times” newspaper, and whence the +same hansom drove the two Antipholi to Stuccoville. + +Mr. Tredethlyn was out, but Mrs. Tredethlyn was at home. Harcourt went +into his friend’s study to write a note; while Roderick followed a +servant to the drawing-rooms, in the smallest and cosiest of which three +gorgeous apartments the diplomatist found Maude and Rosa seated side by +side on a low sofa, while proud Julia meditated apart at the window. + +“You’re the lady I should like to marry,” thought Roderick, as he looked +at Julia’s dark face, which lighted up for a moment with her flashing +smile, as she bowed to him, and then relapsed into gloom; “there’d be +some pleasure in taming _you_. Who would care to cage a robin? but there +would be some glory in subduing the spirit of an eagle.” + +Thus mused Mr. Lowther, while he murmured some commonplace remark upon +the beauty of the summer day, and dropped himself lazily into a seat +near Maude Tredethlyn. He was true to his tactics of the night before, +and addressed his remarks almost entirely to Maude and Julia. When he +did condescend to address the vivacious Rosa, he did so in a manner that +was a delicate admixture of the intellectual bearishness of one of poor +Miss Brontés heroes with the lively banter of a Benedick. The result of +this policy was triumphant, and the market-gardener’s daughter plunged +deeper and deeper still into her five-and-twentieth hopeless attachment. + +While Mr. Lowther the elder was cultivating his own interests in the +drawing-room, Mr. Lowther the younger was pacing up and down Francis +Tredethlyn’s study in no happy frame of mind. Imagine the feelings of a +Mephistopheles who begins to suspect that his victim has slipped away +from him. Harcourt was beginning to feel very doubtful as to the +firmness of his hold on his pupil and companion. + +Francis Tredethlyn’s conduct for the last few weeks had quite baffled +his friend’s penetration. The Cornishman had grown suddenly preoccupied +and reserved. He might still be seen in the haunts of the Bohemians--for +Mr. Lowther took care that he should not easily extricate himself from +the bonds that he had allowed to be coiled about him; but Francis, +always unwilling to be led into the scenes where he had no pleasure, was +now more unwilling than ever, and Harcourt found it very difficult to +play the game he wanted to play without showing his cards. If it had +been a mere question of plucking so many feathers from an innocent +pigeon, the thing might have been done easily enough, perhaps; but Mr. +Lowther evidently wanted something more than his friend’s golden +plumage. It seemed, indeed, as if he would be satisfied with nothing +less than the utter ruin and degradation of Maude Tredethlyn’s husband. + +To-day, walking up and down the study, whose broad plate-glass window +commanded an agreeable view of a stony quadrangle and the roofs and +chimneys of a mews, Harcourt thought very despondently of that grand +scheme to which he had devoted himself so patiently since his return to +England. + +“What secret is the fellow hiding from me?” he thought, resentfully; “he +refused to dine with me to-day, and he threw over the party I made for +Greenwich the day before yesterday. He has made no book for the York +summer, and yet he is less at home than ever. What does it all mean? Can +he have gone to the bad in real earnest at last, and without any help +from me? There must be something in it; but what is the something?” + +Tired at last of such meditations as these, Harcourt Lowther flung +himself into a chair to compose the letter he had talked about writing +when he entered the study. + +He wrote his note, which was very brief, and the gist of which was to +remind Francis of some engagement that would entail the usual champagne +drinking, the usual squandering of money for the gratification of the +worthless society in which a few innocent pigeons abandoned themselves +to be plucked without mercy by every species of predatory fowl. After +having written this little note, so carefully worded that no print of +the fiend’s hoof could have been deciphered therein by uninitiated eyes, +Harcourt Lowther sat with his elbow on the table, biting the feather of +his pen, and ruminating moodily. There were open letters and tradesmen’s +bills lying about upon Francis Tredethlyn’s disorderly writing-table. +Mr. Lowther flung aside his pen presently, and amused himself by a +careless examination of these documents. Some of the bills were heavy +ones, but not so heavy as to make any very serious inroad upon the +Cornishman’s fortune, and Harcourt tossed them away from him one after +the other, uninterested in their details, unconcerned by their +sum-totals, until he came to a dead stop all at once at the first line +of a document which seemed to him to bear an extraordinary significance. + +This document was the bill of a fashionable upholsterer, and the line +below the tradesman’s name and address ran thus: + +“For goods supplied to Francis Tredethlyn, Esq., at Brook Cottage, +Petersham, June 20th, 185-;” and then followed a list of the furniture +for a cottage, the sum-total of which came to little more than three +hundred pounds. + +“So,” muttered Mr. Lowther, “I think I have fallen upon the clue to the +mystery. We will go and look at Mr. Tredethlyn’s furnished cottage.” + +He wrote the address on a tablet in his _portemonnaie_, and went +up-stairs to the drawing-room, where he found Roderick intolerably at +his ease in the society of the three ladies. There was an arrangement +made for a meeting in Maude’s roomy box at Covent Garden, to which Mrs. +Tredethlyn was fain to invite the affectionate Rosa, who clung to her +with peculiar fondness to-day: and then the two gentlemen took their +departure; Roderick to look in at the “Travellers’” and the “St. +James’s;” Harcourt to hurry post-haste--or rather hansom-cab haste--to +the Waterloo terminus, whence he took the train for Richmond. + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + + + + CHAPTER XXXII. + + HARCOURT GATHERS HIS FIRST FRUITS. + + +The party in Mrs. Tredethlyn’s opera-box that evening was a very +pleasant one. Whatever business had taken Harcourt Lowther to Richmond +must have been tolerably satisfactory in its result, for that +gentleman’s spirits were gayer than usual as he stood behind Maude’s +chair in the shadow of the crimson curtain, talking to her under cover +of all those crashing choruses and grand orchestral effects which +Meyerbeer must surely have composed with a view to comfortable +conversation. Miss Grunderson was gorgeous in thirty guineas worth of +blue moiré antique _à la Watteau_, and exhibited a small fortune in the +way of lace and artificial flowers upon her plump little person. Her +diamond earrings were the biggest in the opera-house; though it must be +confessed that a straw-coloured tint, which the connoisseur repudiates, +pervaded the gems that the market-gardener had bought for his +daughter--size, rather than purity of water, being the quality for which +Mr. Grunderson selected his diamonds. Nothing could be more striking +than the contrast between Maude’s simple toilet of white silk and Rosa’s +gaudy splendour. + +But Miss Grunderson was very happy this evening, for the delightful +Roderick condescended to talk to her, while his brother was engrossed by +Mrs. Tredethlyn. He was not very polite, but Rosa thought him positively +charming. She had learnt to understand the emptiness of the attentions +that had been paid to her by enterprising young bachelors, who thought +that an alliance with the great Grunderson’s daughter would be a very +pleasant starting-point on the high-road of life; but she did not +understand that there might come a man wise enough to eschew vain +flatteries and all the ordinary allurements of the vulgar +fortune-hunter, and yet designing enough to spread his nets for any +heiress worthy of his ambition. + +In his conversation with the simple-minded Rosa he affected the +sentiments of a confirmed misogynist. + +“If there were such a possibility as a sensible woman,” he said, “I +might perhaps hope to end my days in the bosom of a family; but since +the age of miracles is past, I resign myself to the idea of remaining a +lonely wanderer until the day of my death.” + +Thus, half in despondency, half in bitterness, Roderick Lowther replied +to some leading remark of Miss Grunderson’s. She called him a horrid man +and a dreadful creature: but she admired him amazingly notwithstanding, +and she felt a seraphic happiness in listening to this delightful +cynical being, to the utter neglect of Meyerbeer. + +“With the exception of public characters,” mused the market-gardener’s +daughter, “I don’t think I was ever _really_ in love until now.” + +And thus it fell out that, when Mrs. Tredethlyn said, in the course of +the evening, that she was going to spend the following day at +Twickenham, Rosa gave such broad hints about the loveliness of the +weather, and the delights of suburban scenery, that good-natured Maude +promised to take her down for a long afternoon among the roses in the +dear old garden where so much of her own happy youth had been idled +away. + +“Are droppers-in to be permitted in your Arcadia, ladies?” demanded +Harcourt; “and will the balls and mallets be considered out of place +upon the lawn by the river?” + +This was quite enough for Miss Grunderson, who cried out directly that +of all things in the world she admired croquet, and that “Par” had +bought her a set of Cremer’s most exquisite walnut-wood balls and +mallets. There were times when the vivacious Rosa called her indulgent +parent “Par,” in spite of those half-dozen annual accounts which he had +paid for the young lady’s education. + +“I shall so enjoy a game of croquet in a real garden!” cried Rosa. “We +play it in the square sometimes; but the little boys and the bakers’ and +butchers’ young men outside the rails are so dreadfully trying, +especially when the balls won’t go where one wants them, owing to +nervousness; and I’m sure it’s enough to make anybody nervous to have a +strange chimney-sweep calling out, ‘Well done, butter-fingers!’ if one +drops a mallet; and _that_ square-keeper is never within sight when +wanted.” + +“Does Tredethlyn go with you to-morrow?” asked Harcourt Lowther +presently; he had been very thoughtful for the last few minutes. + +“No,” Maude answered, rather sadly. “I asked Frank to drive me down in +the mail-phaeton; but he told me he was going a little way out of town +on business.” + +She was thinking how very great a change had come to pass since her +husband had been her adoring slave, only too happy to follow wherever +she pleased to lead him. Now there was no quarrel, no actual +misunderstanding between them; but there was quite a wide breach, as if +they had agreed to separate after a long series of domestic battles. + +“Roderick and I will come down to the Cedars to-morrow,” said Harcourt, +bending over Maude’s chair, “unless you forbid us to do so. The river is +delightful just now, and you may want the services of a couple of +boatmen.” + +“We shall be very glad to see you, if you like to come,” Mrs. Tredethlyn +answered, carelessly. Looking up just then, she saw Miss Grunderson’s +round eyes fixed upon her with a very earnest expression. Rosa had heard +all sorts of insinuations respecting Mr. Lowther’s constant attendance +upon Mrs. Tredethlyn, and the young lady was wondering whether her +darling Maude did really deserve any of the reprobation that had been +showered upon her as a flirting matron. + +“There’s a way of saying ‘How do you do?’ or ‘Pretty well, thanks,’ that +seems like flirting,” mused Miss Grunderson; “and Mr. Lowther always has +that way when he talks to Mrs. Tredethlyn. I _know_ she is too good to +be a flirt, in spite of all those malicious people may say about her; +and I don’t like Harcourt Lowther a bit, for _he_ must know how his +flirting manner is talked about, though she doesn’t. I’ve seen +half-a-dozen opera-glasses turned this way to-night, just because he’s +been bending over her chair in that whispering way of his. And yet he +has only been talking of croquet.” + +Rosa’s friendship was quite as ardent as her love, and much more +lasting. Mrs. Tredethlyn’s gentleness had quite subdued that +affectionate little heart, and the market-gardener’s daughter would have +been willing to make any effort in her friend’s service. She was a very +energetic little girl, with a good deal of that moral courage which is +sometimes wanting in more delicate natures. To put the fact in her own +words, Rosa was able to speak her mind, and to speak it very freely too, +whenever the occasion called for candour. + +The next day was one of the brightest in a brilliant July, and Mrs. +Tredethlyn’s shell-shaped barouche was waiting before the ponderous +stuccoed portico at eleven o’clock. Francis had left the house half an +hour before on foot, bent on that mysterious expedition a little way out +of town which he took so frequently now. Maude and Julia came +down-stairs at a quarter after eleven; and Miss Grunderson skipped up +the stone steps two minutes afterwards, with the bluest bonnet and the +pinkest parasol in London. + +“How do you like the new contrast?” she inquired, twirling the pink +parasol triumphantly, when she had adjusted her flounces and furbelows +to the best of her ability on the front seat of Mrs. Tredethlyn’s +carriage. “I remember, when I was at school, pink and blue together were +thought bad taste, but now they’re quite _de rigger_. Ness pas ker say +joli dong? s’p’tite ombrelle?” demanded Miss Grunderson, bursting into +French. “Vingt-huit shillings, ma chère! Ness pas trèscher, chère? Et le +boutiquier ne voudrait pas prendre un six-sous là dessous, quoique je +l’ai marchandé comme un juif,” she added, with a slap-dash rendering of +the language which was peculiar to her. + +The summer day was delightful, and Maude’s spirits, which had been +rather depressed of late, rose with the sunshine and the pure air, as +the high-stepping bays left Stuccoville behind them for the pleasant +country road, and the rustic odours of suburban gardens. And then, when +she found herself amongst her own birds and flower-beds, it was hard to +believe that she was no longer a girl, with a girl’s careless happiness +in beautiful things. She sat under a great drooping willow, whose lowest +branches dipped into the water, and watched her dogs gambolling with +Rosa on the grass. + +“I was like that, once,” she thought, “before I knew of papa’s +difficulties--before I sold myself for money. I fancied that it was a +heroic thing to marry the man I did not love, in the hope that my esteem +might be some poor repayment of his generous devotion--his noble trust +in my father. But I know now that I could do him no baser wrong than +become his wife. I know it now, when he himself has learnt to despise +and to avoid me, even when I am anxious to win back his regard.” + +Yes, it had come to this. Maude Tredethlyn deeply felt her husband’s +palpable avoidance of her. So long as he had been slavishly devoted, she +had been just a little inclined to despise him; but now that the +treasure of an honest man’s love seemed to have slipped away from her, +she awoke to the consciousness that it was a treasure, and that she had +need to be unhappy in the loss of a jewel that is not given to every +woman to possess. She sickened at the thought of the wealth which her +marriage had given her, now that it was unsanctified by the love of the +giver. Was it gone, that devoted affection which she had held so lightly +while it was hers to throw away? She began to understand now how +delicate a thing a heart is, even when it beats beneath the rudest +breast, and how soon it withers under the blighting influence of +disdain. Yes, she had been faithfully loved by an honest man who would +have given his very life for her happiness, and she had trifled with his +love until it was lost. Queen Guinivere has only one set of diamonds to +throw into the river; and when the passion has passed in whose hot +impulse she flung them away, the lady is apt to regret her lost jewels. + +Miss Desmond and Miss Grunderson trifled with the balls and mallets, +while Maude wandered listlessly on the terrace thinking of the breach +between herself and her husband. She was still lingering there alone, +when Harcourt and Roderick Lowther strolled from the drawing-room on to +the lawn. The eldest set about instructing Julia Desmond and Miss +Grunderson with regard to the latest and most intricate by-laws of +croquet; and the younger made his way at once to the terrace where Maude +was walking listlessly and slowly under a coquettish white umbrella. + +Harcourt Lowther took care that Mrs. Tredethlyn had no more time for +solitary musing. He brought all his talents to bear to keep her amused, +and by the aid of fashionable small-talk, sharp little criticisms on new +books, croquet, luncheon, and an incursion among Mr. Hillary’s +hothouses, he contrived to chase the shadow of care quite away from the +young wife’s girlish brow. It was about four o’clock, and the afternoon +had lapsed into a sultry sleepy brightness that was almost oppressive +even in that green retreat beside the river, when the two gentlemen +suggested the water. + +“Of all things in the world the most delightful!” screamed Miss +Grunderson. “Oh, do please take us out in one of those darling little +dangerous-looking boats I saw in the Swiss boat-house down there. And +oh, what a pity I didn’t wear a hat instead of this odious blue bonnet, +which is beginning to fly already!” said Rosa, looking despondently at +the expansive ribands fluttering below her double chin, which had lost +some little of their azure intensity under the influence of the July +sun. To Miss Grunderson’s great delight, the two gentlemen proceeded +forthwith to the boat-house, and lowered a couple of wherries, as +perfect in their way as any craft that ever came out of the hands of +Messrs. Messenger. Harcourt placed Mrs. Tredethlyn and Julia Desmond in +one of these boats, and to the other descended Miss Grunderson, with +more small shrieks of terror and feminine skirmishing, and a greater +display of Balmoral boots and embroidered flounces than was absolutely +necessary to the embarkation. + +“I never get into a boat without thinking I shall be drowned,” said +Rosa, plumping down upon the cushions, and all but upsetting herself at +the first start; “the water does give way so. But if one _was_ drowned, +it would be rather nice to have a paragraph all to one’s self in the +daily newspapers, or perhaps what pa calls a social leader, beginning +with something about the Moloch Pleasure having swallowed another +victim, and Youth at the prow and Pleasure at the helm, and the Pale +Horse, and so on.” + +And then Miss Grunderson, finding herself quite alone with the latest +object of her adoration, exerted all her small fascinations to beguile +the woman-hater from his stern aversion to her sex. She chattered as +gaily as some talking-bird; and Roderick Lowther, who imagined that he +had by this time established himself firmly as a disinterested +individual, condescended to make himself agreeable, and to drift into +that pleasant current of meaningless small-talk which malicious people +call flirtation. + +While Roderick rowed his fair companion swiftly past the verdant bank, +Harcourt let his boat drift slowly down with the current, only dipping +his oars now and then in the intervals of his discourse. Maude had +forgotten her troubled reverie upon the terrace, and gave herself up to +the enjoyment of all the old talk about books and music, poetry and +painting, which had been so delicious to her in those departed days when +she and Harcourt had drifted down that same river plighted husband and +wife. There is no monitor so sharp as rural nature when we have need to +be reminded of our inconstancy. Looking at those reedy banks, those +tranquil gardens sloping to a tranquil tide, Maude found it almost +difficult to believe in the changes of her life since she had first +floated down that stream, a child, with wild-flowers in her lap, and her +little bare arm hanging across the edge of the boat, for the infantile +pleasure of splashing. + +Harcourt Lowther found his brother’s boat moored to a little quay in a +shady corner of the river below the Star and Garter, and the splendid +colouring of Miss Grunderson’s toilet made that young lady conspicuous +as she ascended a little pathway sloping upwards to the terrace, +attended by her cavalier. Harcourt shipped his oars, and proposed a +stroll in the Petersham meadows. Maude looked at her watch; it was a +quarter to five, and Mr. Hillary’s dinner-hour was half-past seven. +There was plenty of time for a stroll across those verdant meadows, and +Mrs. Tredethlyn, having the interval to dispose of somehow, had only to +choose in wasting it in this way or in some other fashion. Harcourt had +his wish therefore. He assisted the two ladies to disembark, gave his +coat into the custody of one of the lounging watermen at the rustic +landing-stage, and then strolled with his two companions into the +meadows leading towards Petersham. + +There is little need to tell the English reader what Petersham is like. +Almost everybody knows that rural cluster of modern villas and grand old +red brick mansions nestling so comfortably under the shadow of Richmond +Hill. Surely the next best thing to inhabiting Earl Russell’s house in +Richmond Park, or that magic château of Monsieur Fould’s, hidden deep in +the woody heart of grand old St. Germain’s, would be to own one of those +Georgian mansions at Petersham, with cool fishponds and shady gardens, +long ranges of narrow windows, and a marble-paved vestibule, with a +ceiling by Thornhill, and old family portraits by polite Sir Joshua +himself. It was the afternoon of afternoons for listless dawdling about +such a place as Petersham, and Mr. Lowther and the two ladies were alike +enthusiastic in their admiration of the Georgian mansions. + +“I wish Francis would buy a nice old house down here,” said Maude. “I am +so tired of London; it is all the same thing over, and over, and over +again; the same flock of sheep jumping through the same gap in the same +hedge, and not one of them--no, not even the leader--knowing why they do +it. I should be near papa here, and all my old friends. In town I seem +to know everybody, and yet not to have a single friend.” + +There was a rustic bench in the lane through which they were walking as +Maude said this. The two ladies sat down to rest for a few minutes, and +Harcourt Lowther took out his cigar-case. + +“I shall leave you just long enough to smoke a cigarette,” he said, “and +then I will take you back to the water-side by a still prettier road, if +you like.” + +He went away at a leisurely pace, lighting his cigar as he went; but he +walked a good deal faster when he was out of Maude Tredethlyn’s ken, and +he was flushed with heat when he returned after a quarter of an hour’s +absence. + +“Now, ladies,” he said, “if we are not to keep Mr. Hillary waiting for +his dinner, it is high time for us to go back to the boat.” + +Maude and Julia rose, and the little party strolled into the road at the +end of the lane in the straggling order usual to people who walk for +their own pleasure in a country village. Mrs. Tredethlyn’s white +umbrella was a little way ahead of her companions, when Harcourt Lowther +laid his gloved hand lightly upon Julia’s shoulder. + +She looked up at him, startled by the gesture. + +“You have had some reason to complain of your friend Miss Hillary and +Francis Tredethlyn,” he said. “I am going to give you your revenge.” + +Julia stared in amazement at the speaker; but he did not wait to be +interrogated. + +“Come, Mrs. Tredethlyn,” he said, “your papa will have to wait for his +dinner, unless you walk a little faster.” + +He had not much reason to complain of Maude, who had been ahead of him +until this moment, but he hurried her along the dusty road until, at a +spot where it curved round to the river, he stopped suddenly, pointing +to a cottage-garden, seen through the iron rails of a high old-fashioned +gate set in a framework of clematis. + +“Look at that, Mrs. Tredethlyn! Isn’t it a pretty picture?” + +It was a little rustic _tableau_ composed of two figures grouped under a +mulberry-tree,--a delicate-looking woman, with soft brown hair, touched +here and there with a glimmer of gold, seated on a rustic bench. Her +face was turned away from the road, and she was looking up at a man who +leaned against the trunk of a tree. It was only a glimpse of this +picture which Maude caught between the iron scroll-work of the gate, but +she saw quite enough. + +The man was Francis Tredethlyn. + +“Great Heaven!” exclaimed Harcourt Lowther, in an audible whisper; “it +_is_ Francis!” + +Maude looked at him with a vague alarm in her face, which had grown +almost as white as the umbrella that sheltered it. Harcourt’s whisper +had frightened her a hundredfold more than the sight of her husband, at +home in that unknown garden with a woman she had never seen or heard of. + +“Who is that lady?” she asked, when they had passed the gate. “Do you +know her, Mr. Lowther? You know all my husband’s associates much better +than I do.” + +She tried to speak quite calmly, but failed miserably in the effort. +Harcourt’s whisper had expressed so much. + +“No, I do not know the lady,” he answered, gravely. “I think you had +better make no inquiries about her. Mr. Tredethlyn did not tell you that +he was to spend the day at Petersham?” + +“No. He only said that he was going a little way out of town.” + +“Then in that case it will be better for you to leave him to finish his +day as he pleases, since you have made no arrangement for meeting him +here, and do not know the lady.” + +Maude did not answer him just then. She walked on a little faster than +before; and Harcourt kept by her side, looking furtively every now and +then at the pale profile, the tremulous lower lip. He could see that +Mrs. Tredethlyn was profoundly agitated, and that she was trying to +conceal her agitation. He could see this; and he was determined to make +her speak, and speak freely. + +“She is not the sort of woman to suffer in silence,” he thought. “This +kind of trouble is new to her, and she will cry out presently.” + +Mr. Lowther was not very much at fault in his estimate of Maude’s +heroism. She spoke to him when they were a few paces from Julia, whose +face was lighted by a look of triumph under her gauzy veil. + +“You say you do not know that lady. You must at least know who she is?” + +This was said in a tone of almost piteous entreaty. + +“Upon my honour, no,” Harcourt answered, gravely. + +There was a pause for some moments. They were in one of the meadows by +this time, nearing the water’s edge, Julia still in the rear, and Maude +still walking very fast, as it is the habit of most people to walk under +the influence of agitation. Perhaps in that unreasoning, unnecessary +haste, there lurks a vague fancy that we can hurry _away_ from our +trouble. + +All at once Maude turned to Harcourt Lowther and laid her hand upon his +arm. + +“Tell me what it all means,” she cried,--“tell me the worst, however bad +it is. I know that you are hiding something from me. I know by your +manner just now that there is some horrible meaning in Frank’s presence +in that garden with that woman.” + +“My dear Mrs. Tredethlyn, you ask me to interfere in a matter which I +have no right to approach. It may be everything to you where your +husband goes,--whom he associates with. I have been his friend,--for +your sake; and I have done my best to steer him clear of dangerous +acquaintance and dangerous amusements--still for your sake. I may have +found it a hard matter to keep him out of mischief, and may have +regretted the natural tendencies of his character--always for your sake. +Beyond this I can have nothing to do with him. I had good reason for +being sorry when you married him--on my own account. Of late I have been +even more sorry--on yours.” + +Maude looked at him, white and trembling. The schemer was pleased to see +what deadly mischief had been done, and yet stung to the very heart to +find that any falsehood of his victim’s could wound so deeply. There are +triumphs which have a shadow of humiliation upon their brightness, and +this was one of them. Julia, seeing that her companions were loitering, +seated herself on the lower step of a stile. She had no desire to +interrupt this conversation. + +“Speak to me plainly,” Mrs. Tredethlyn cried, passionately, “or I will +go back to that cottage and ask my husband himself for an explanation. +Perhaps that would be best. He has a better right to explain his conduct +than any one else.” + +She walked a few paces from her companion; but Harcourt Lowther followed +her, and caught her gently by the arm. + +“Will Francis Tredethlyn tell you the truth if you question him?” he +asked. “My dear Mrs. Tredethlyn, how could you endure the _esclandre_ of +such a scene as _must_ ensue if you go back to that house, and confront +your husband in the presence of that woman?” + +“Why should there be a scene, or any _esclandre_? The lady may be the +wife or daughter of some friend of my husband’s. Have I any right to +imagine something horrible because I see Frank with a person who is a +stranger to me? It was only your manner that frightened me.” + +“I am very sorry my manner was so foolish. Let us drop the subject. +Only--take my advice--don’t go back to that house.” + +“Why should I not, if my husband is innocent? as I am sure he is.” + +Mr. Lowther shrugged his shoulders. + +“Because it is an unpleasant thing to intrude where one is not invited,” +he answered. “Whatever questions you wish to ask your husband can be +reserved until you are both at home; and in the meantime pray let the +matter drop. Believe me, it is not a fit subject for discussion between +you and me.” + +There are lawyers who generally inaugurate a consultation by advising +their clients not to go to law. They know it is a very safe display of +magnanimity. It is only the old story of standing on the shore to reason +with a tempestuous ocean, or interfering with the appetite of a famished +wolf in favour of the lamb on which he means to dine. To try to restrain +a woman whose jealousy has once been aroused from any investigation of +her fancied wrongs, is no less wasted labour; and Harcourt Lowther knew +quite enough of human nature to be very sure of this. + +Mrs. Tredethlyn turned upon him fiercely. He had never seen the woman he +loved in a passion until this moment; and though he had so much else to +employ his thoughts just now, he could not help pausing for a moment to +think now beautiful she looked with that new light in her eyes, that +feverish glow so suddenly kindled in the cheeks that had been deadly +pale. + +“I will not let the matter drop,” she cried. “You are keeping some +hideous secret hidden from me. I know you are. I could not be mistaken +in your tone just now when you saw Francis in that garden. If there were +no harm in his being there, why should you express such amazement? +Harcourt Lowther, we were friends once, and you affect to be my friend +now. If you are what you pretend to be, tell me the meaning of my +husband’s conduct?” + +“You love him very much, Maude, to feel his conduct so deeply.” + +She was too agitated to notice that her old lover had called her by her +Christian name. He had perhaps been scarcely aware of it himself. He +loved her better at this moment than he had ever loved her in his life, +now that she stood before him a beautiful, angry, passionate creature, +appealing to him against the husband for whose sake he had been jilted. + +“You must be very much in love with your husband,” he repeated, +bitterly; “and yet I should have scarcely thought it possible you could +care for that sort of person.” + +“He _is_ my husband,” answered Maude, “and I have a right to be angry if +he does any wrong.” + +“I acknowledge your right to be as angry as you please, but I am sorry +to see you so agitated. I am very sorry we happened to walk this way.” + +“Will you tell me the truth? I have appealed to you by our old +friendship. I shall never again believe in you as a friend unless you +speak plainly to-day.” + +“If you say _that_, you oblige me to speak. Will you take my arm, and +walk up and down by the hedge yonder? I see people coming into the +meadow, and we look rather conspicuous standing just here.” + +Mrs. Tredethlyn accepted the proffered arm. Harcourt Lowther was silent +for some moments, while they strolled slowly under the shadow of a tall +hawthorn hedge. He was waiting until Maude should have recovered some +little calmness, and be in a condition to appreciate the full value of +what he was going to say. + +“It would be going over very old ground, and awakening very bitter +recollections--on my part, at least,” he began at last, in a subdued and +pensive tone, “were I to tell you what I thought of your marriage with +Francis Tredethlyn. When I thought of it most mildly, I believed it the +maddest sacrifice that was ever made to the Moloch Wealth since this +world began. You had your reasons, you told me, and they were very +powerful reasons, but they were to be kept a secret. I had no more to +say. All I could do was to hope that you might not be utterly miserable +with the man you married--to my mind, the man of all others least +adapted to make you a happy wife. I should have done well had I been +wise enough to keep aloof from you and your husband after that unhappy +marriage. I was so mad as to hang about your house, and accept the +friendship of my rival, in the belief that I might save the vessel +wherein you had embarked from some of those rocks which I saw a little +ahead of the calm bay whence you sailed, with all the stereotyped +paraphernalia of pennants flying and guns firing. I _have_ saved you +from a good deal; but I have not been able to change your husband’s +nature, and he has taken his own way in spite of me.” + +“What do you mean?” Maude demanded, breathlessly. + +“I cannot, and will not, enter into the details of Francis Tredethlyn’s +life for the last twelve months. No, Maude, not even your entreaties +shall wring from me more than I have a right to tell, or you to hear. +And if I spoke the plainest words that ever sullied a woman’s ear, I +should only be talking a strange language which would convey no meaning +to your innocent mind. There are places in London whose names you have +never heard in your life--places whose very existence might never be +known to honest people, if men did not write about them in the +newspapers; and amongst the _habitués_ of those places your husband has +been conspicuous since the first week of his return from the village +where you and he spent your honeymoon. There are dinners given, up at +that hotel yonder, to women whose costume is an extravagant copy of +yours, but who in everything except their dress differ from you as +entirely as darkness differs from light; and Francis Tredethlyn has been +foremost amongst the dinner-givers ever since he has had a fortune to +squander. So long as he was amused by open follies and dissipations I +cherished a lingering hope that custom would bring weariness, and that +the very monotony of these poisonous pleasures would render them their +own antidote. I made excuses for the man who had so newly succeeded to a +fortune large enough to intoxicate a weak brain; and I fancied when the +novelty of his wealth had ceased to bewilder him, he would awake to a +bitter sense of the degrading path in which he was treading. I thought +this, Maude, and I believed also that your loveliness, your purity, +rendered all the more obvious by contrast with the people among whom he +wasted his life, must lure him back to your side. How could I think +otherwise than this?--_I_, who had loved and lost you!” + +It never occurred to Mrs. Tredethlyn that these were the very last words +that Harcourt Lowther should have spoken to her, at this moment above +all other moments. It seemed as if she scarcely heard this allusion to +the past, any more than she had heard her old lover’s frequent utterance +of her Christian name. + +“I think my husband loved me--once,” she murmured in a low sorrowful +voice. “He was so noble in his conduct--so generous to my father.” + +“My poor girl,” exclaimed Harcourt, with supreme compassion, “how should +_you_ know the difference between a good man’s generosity and a +profligate’s lavish bid for the fair young bride who happens to be the +fancy of a moment? There are men who will give as exaggerated a price +for a picture as ever Francis Tredethlyn offered when he won you for his +wife; but you would scarcely call a man ‘generous’ because he bid +extravagantly for a Raffaelle or a Murillo at Christie’s. There is no +creature in this world so selfish as a profligate.” + +Maude turned sick and cold to the very heart as Mr. Lowther said this. + +A profligate! The horrible word wounded her like the stroke of a knife. +In a moment this innocent girl, who until now had only known the +existence of “profligacy” as an unspeakable noun substantive hidden away +somewhere in the close columns of unexpurgated dictionaries, felt the +veil rudely torn from the purity of her mind; and was told that her +husband--the other part of herself, united to her by the solemn service +of the Church--was the obnoxious thing which until this hour no one had +ever dared to name in her presence. The generosity she had believed in +was a sham. The noble nature which had commanded her regard and esteem, +even when it could not win her love, had never existed out of her own +imagination. She had been wronged, betrayed, humiliated; while in her +schoolgirl simplicity she had been lamenting her unworthiness of a +devoted husband’s love. She had been bought for money like a slave in +some Oriental market-place, when she had imagined herself a free +sacrifice offered as the recompense of a sacred debt. + +She did not speak; but looking at her face Harcourt Lowther saw that his +words had gone home. The breach between husband and wife yawned wide +enough now. The undermining of the ground had been slow, laborious work, +but the result repaid this social engineer for all his trouble. With +what a crash the earth fell in when it was time for the convulsion! So +some huge mass of Kentish chalk, which sappers and miners have been +manipulating for a month or so, and at which a crowd of tired spectators +have been straining hopelessly for two hours at a stretch, breaks away +all at once from the bosom of the cliff with a thunderous noise, and +crumbles into powder. + +But Mr. Lowther had not finished yet. + +“I thought I could win you back to your husband, Maude, and restore him +to you a better man,” he said; “but I soon discovered how futile such a +hope was. I have been by his side in scenes that were horribly repugnant +to my own nature, in order that I might hold him back from the verge of +deeper gulfs than those into which he had already fallen. Within the +last few months I have known that he kept a secret from me, and I knew +that it must be a disgraceful one. Only a few days ago it came to my +knowledge that he had lately furnished a house somewhere in the suburbs. +This gave me a clue to those mysterious absences, those journeys on +business a little way out of town, about which your husband had been so +reticent. Men of Francis Tredethlyn’s calibre do not furnish houses from +benevolent motives. I had no means of knowing where the house was,--how +little could I imagine that it was in this neighbourhood, or that +accident would lead our footsteps to its very threshold! Mrs. +Tredethlyn, you shall not wring another word from me. I am sorry that +you have tempted me to tell you so much,” exclaimed Mr. Harcourt, who +had said all he wanted to say. + +It was a long time before Maude answered him; and then she said, very +slowly, and with a painful effort-- + +“I thank you--for having told me the truth. It is always best to know +the truth.” + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + + + + CHAPTER XXXIII. + + ROSA’S REVELATIONS. + + +After this there was no more said between Harcourt Lowther and Mrs. +Tredethlyn upon the subject of her husband’s delinquencies. They walked +slowly back to the stile, where Julia was sitting as quietly as if she +had been that monumental Patience of whom the poet has told us. There is +something wonderfully expressive in natural pantomime; and Miss Desmond, +sitting on that rustic stile tracing figures from Euclid on the dusty +pathway under her feet with the ivory point of her parasol, had yet +contrived to keep a sharp watch upon those two people on the other side +of the meadow, and to form a tolerably clear idea as to the gist of +their conversation. + +“Julia dear,” Maude said, wearily, as they walked to the river-side, +“would you mind going back to town as soon as we can get to the +carriage? I have such an intolerable headache, that I’m sure I shall be +quite unfit to dine with papa.” + +Of course Julia declared that dining in London or at the Cedars was +equally indifferent to her. It was very often her humour to affect the +dull characterless manner of a paid dependant; and it was her humour to +do so just now. + +“I am afraid Mr. Lowther and I have kept you waiting an unconscionable +time,” said Maude, looking at her watch. + +“Not at all,” replied Miss Desmond; “I rather like waiting.” + +Roderick Lowther and Miss Grunderson were loitering at the little +landing-stage; the young lady’s showy draperies pre-Raffaelite in the +sharp edges which she exhibited against the hot blue sky. + +“Oh, you darling Mrs. Tredethlyn!” exclaimed Rosa; “I thought you _never +were_ coming. If your pa is half as particular about his dinner as mine +is, won’t he be cross with us all! It’s close upon seven o’clock!” + +Maude looked piteously at Harcourt Lowther. He understood that appealing +glance. + +“I have given Mrs. Tredethlyn a violent headache by putting her in an +awningless boat under a broiling sun,” he said, “and then beguiling her +into a fatiguing walk; and I deserve to be horsewhipped for my +stupidity. If you have any regard for your friend’s health, Miss +Grunderson, you will forego the pleasure of dining with Mr. Hillary, and +get her home as quietly as you can.” + +Rosa Grunderson might be silly, but she was by no means stupid; and, +looking at Maude’s ashen face, she saw that something more than a +headache had caused the change in her friend. She saw this; and that +vague distrust which she felt about the brother of the man she adored +shaped itself into a positive dislike. + +“That Mr. Lowther has been saying something to annoy her,” thought Miss +Grunderson; “and I hate him. What business has he to be always dancing +attendance upon her instead of her husband? And now he’s not content +with getting her talked about, so he must needs go and make her unhappy, +poor darling.” + +Thus mused the meditative Rosa, while Roderick Lowther rowed her +homeward over the placid water. The diplomatist’s fascinations were +almost thrown away upon her during this brief journey from Richmond to +the Cedars, although he had progressed so far in Miss Grunderson’s +affections during a leisurely promenade on the terrace, that he had +serious thoughts of calling on Grunderson _père_ within the week to make +a formal offer for the young lady’s hand and fortune. + +“I have no idea of wasting my time and trouble upon the girl, to find +myself thrown out at the last moment by the impracticable parent,” +thought Roderick, as he shot through the water with that long deliberate +stroke for which the Oxonians are celebrated. “I must know exactly where +I am, before I devote myself to the plump Rosa. There must be no +nonsense about settlements and so forth. I won’t have any legal brick +wall and _chevaux de frise_ between me and my wife’s fortune. A man +doesn’t quarter a cabbage with the arms of the oldest untitled family in +Hampshire without getting well paid for the humiliation. I must +understand what I’m going in for, when I propose to my charming Rosa.” + +Lionel Hillary was in the drawing-room when the water-party returned to +the Cedars; but he accepted his daughter’s assurance that she was too +tired and too ill to dine with him, and escorted her to her carriage as +soon as it was ready for her. Maude was quite composed now, and there +was no suspicion of the truth aroused in the merchant’s mind when he +kissed her and bade her good-bye. + +“It was foolish of you to go on the water in the hottest part of the +day, darling,” he said; “and I’m afraid you are going out a little too +much in town; but the season will soon be over, and I suppose you will +be leaving London.” + +Mrs. Tredethlyn murmured something unintelligible, and the barouche +rolled away. She saw her father and the two Lowthers standing on the +wide stone steps dimly through a mist, athwart which the group seemed +only a confusion of familiar faces and dark garments; and then she found +herself driving Londonwards through the still evening, with Julia by her +side, and Rosa’s anxious face opposite to her. + +She accepted unquestioningly all that Harcourt Lowther had told her. Her +husband was false to her. There was so much in Francis Tredethlyn’s life +since his marriage which seemed an evidence of his accuser’s truth. And +then Harcourt had not wished to accuse. The cruel revelation had been +extorted from him. No trouble that Maude had ever yet endured had been +so bitter as that which had come upon her to-day,--the shame, the +humiliation, the unutterable horror of that discovery made in the summer +sunshine, amidst the perfume of flowers, the joyous carolling of a +skylark high up in the warm blue sky. She did not love her husband; and +the agony which gnawed her breast during this homeward journey was the +sharp pang which belongs to wounded pride rather than to betrayed +affection. At least this was what she said to herself, as she +remembered, with an angry flush upon her brow, those sneering remarks of +Mr. Lowther’s about her love for such a man as Francis Tredethlyn. + +“I do believe he loved me once, let Harcourt Lowther say what he will; +and he was nobly generous to my father; and now he deserts me +altogether, and devotes himself to some horrible woman!” thought Mrs. +Tredethlyn, whose ideas were not particularly sequential this evening. + +She meditated upon so much as she knew of the life that Francis had led +since the close of his honeymoon. His late hours, his frequent absences, +all seemed to confirm Harcourt’s account of dissipated habits and +degraded tastes. + +Yes, everything combined to prove the miserable truth. She was a +neglected wife; abandoned by the man who had once seemed the veriest +slave that ever bowed beneath the supreme dominion of Love. She +remembered what he had been, or what she had believed him to be, and was +all the more indignant with him for the discoveries of to-day. Rosa +Grunderson, anxiously watching Mrs. Tredethlyn in the twilight, wondered +that so dark a cloud could overshadow the fair face of her friend. + +“It must be something very dreadful,” thought Rosa; “but whatever it is, +that Mr. Lowther is at the bottom of it. If Roderick does +propose,--which I’ve every reason to think he will, from the way he +conducted himself on the terrace,--and he and pa can come to any +arrangement about me, I won’t have much to do with my brother-in-law, +that’s certain, for I hate him. But I dare say those horrid ground-rents +will always stand in the way of my being married to anybody but a +Rothschild; and Rothschilds don’t trouble _themselves_ about +ground-rents.” + +The drive from Twickenham to Stuccoville is not a very long one; and +Mrs. Tredethlyn’s bays got over the ground at a pace that did credit to +the judgment of Mr. Lowther, who had chosen the horses for his friend. +It was nearly nine o’clock when the barouche drew up before the Doric +colonnade which imparted a funereal darkness to Maude’s dining-room; and +before the three ladies could alight, a hansom cab dashed up to the +kerbstone, a pair of slamming doors were flung open, and Francis +Tredethlyn sprang out upon the pavement. + +His wife’s face flushed crimson, and then grew deadly pale. She turned +to Rosa Grunderson, and murmured in faint, broken accents: “Will you +dine with us, Rosa? or shall Martin drive you home?” + +“Thank you, darling,” Miss Grunderson answered promptly; “I think I’ll +come in for just a few moments. Pa will have gone to the Bell and--to +his club by this time,” added Rosa, whose parent was wont to spend his +evenings in the parlour of a very respectable tavern in the Brompton +Road, where he and several other worthies assembled nightly to discuss +the affairs of the nation amidst the fumes of their cigars, the +primitive clay being strictly tabooed in that select little coterie. + +Maude alighted and entered the hall. Francis had handed her from the +carriage, and followed her into the house. He threw away his cigar as he +stepped into the hall, and approached his wife radiant with good spirits +and perfumed with tobacco. + +“I’m so glad you’ve come home,” he said. “I thought you were going to +dine with the governor, and that I should have to sit in that dreary +room all by myself, with only Landseer’s staghounds to keep me company; +though if half the people one calls company were as much alive as _they_ +are, a dinner-party wouldn’t be such a dismal business as it is. Of +course you haven’t dined; no more have I; and unfortunately there +doesn’t seem to be any dinner,” added Mr. Tredethlyn, as he opened the +door and looked into the dining-room, where the table was blank and +ghastly under a faint glimmer of gas. “No one was expected, I suppose? +However, they can get us something. Geoffreys, just see about dinner, +will you? How do you do, Miss Grunderson? I dare say you’re hungry after +your drive. Are you going up-stairs, Maude?” + +“Yes,” answered Mrs. Tredethlyn. The syllable had a startling effect as +it fell from her lips, like one solitary drop of hail falling suddenly +on a summer day. + +“I am going up-stairs,” said Miss Desmond confidentially to Rosa; “will +you come with me, and take off your things?” + +“No, thanks, dear,” answered Miss Grunderson, who would have endured +tortures rather than say “thank you,” when fashion required that she +should say “thanks.” “I don’t think I _will_ take off my things. Mrs. +Tredethlyn doesn’t seem very well; and it’s almost too late for dinner; +so I think I’ll just go up to the morning-room, and rest for a few +minutes before I go home. The carriage needn’t be kept, you know, +please,” added Miss Grunderson, to a male domestic hovering in the +shadowy depths of the hall; “for I can have a cab fetched when I want to +go.” + +Mr. Tredethlyn had followed his wife to the drawing-room; and the two +girls standing at the foot of the staircase heard one of the doors close +with a sonorous bang. + +Miss Desmond went up-stairs, and Miss Grunderson followed slowly. The +morning-room of which Rosa had spoken was on the second floor; but the +young lady did not go any farther than the first landing-place. The door +of the front drawing-room was closed, but the doors of the back +drawing-room stood wide open; and peering into the lighted apartment, +Rosa saw that it was quite empty. She paused for a moment, looked about +her; and then went quietly into the back drawing-room, and closed the +door very softly behind her. + +Francis Tredethlyn followed his wife to the drawing-room because that +one frozen syllable, together with the strange expression of her face, +had been quite enough to tell him that something was wrong. This husband +and this wife had never quarrelled. There had been between them none of +those little stormy passages which are apt to interrupt the serenity of +the best-regulated households; and the Cornishman’s heart turned cold +with the thought that anything like ill-feeling could arise between +himself and Maude. The altered expression of her face boded so much; and +yet what could arise to displease her, when he was nothing but her +devoted slave, ready to obey her commands, willing to lay down his very +life for her pleasure? + +“Maude,” he said, as he closed the drawing-room door, “you speak to me +and look at me as if you were offended. And yet I have no consciousness +of having done anything to displease you.” + +Mrs. Tredethlyn looked at her husband with supreme contempt; not the +cool scorn which is akin to indifference, but rather a passionate +disdainfulness. Taking into consideration the fact that Maude did not +care for her husband, all this feminine rage seemed a sad waste of +feeling. + +“Do not add hypocrisy to the wrong you have done me,” said Mrs. +Tredethlyn. “I have been most cruelly awakened this day to a knowledge +of the life you have been leading--ever since our marriage. I cannot +speak of this subject; it is too horrible; I think the words would choke +me. I thought that I should have been able to write what I had to tell +you; but since I have been so unfortunate as to meet you, I may as well +say with my own lips what I meant to have said in a letter. It is very +little. I have only to tell you that from this moment we must be +strangers to each other. After my discoveries of to-day, I should +consider myself a base and degraded creature if I ever suffered your +hand to touch mine in friendship again. The obligation of my father’s +debt to you must rest upon him henceforward, and not upon me.” + +“But, Maude, explain yourself!--your discovery of to-day, you say! What +discovery?” + +“Your affectation of unconsciousness is a deeper insult than your----No, +I will _not_ discuss this subject with you!” cried Maude, passionately. +“It is shameful--it is cruel--that I should have been wronged so basely, +when I trusted you so completely. Do not speak to me; do not touch me!” +she exclaimed, shrinking away from him with a shudder; “your presence +inspires me with disgust and abhorrence. Why do you make any poor +pretence of inhabiting this house, which has only afforded you an +ostensible shelter, while your amusements and your friends have been +found elsewhere? I set you free from this hour, Mr. Tredethlyn. Seek for +happiness after your own fashion; where you please. I have nothing more +to say to you.” + +She swept from the room before her husband could arrest her. Unspeakably +bewildered by her passionate words, which were almost meaningless to +him, Francis Tredethlyn stood motionless as a statue a few paces from +the doorway by which his wife had just left him. He was standing thus +when the voluminous curtains which were drawn across the archway between +the drawing-rooms were cautiously divided, and a plump little figure in +blue muslin appeared among the amber drapery. The Cornishman heard the +rustling, and turned abruptly towards the _portière_. + +“Yes,” exclaimed Miss Grunderson, “it’s me; no, it’s I!--but, goodness +gracious, what _does_ it matter about grammar, when there’s so much +trouble in the world?--yes, and I’ve been listening,” continued the +young lady, answering Mr. Tredethlyn’s inquiring stare; “and I know that +listening in a general way is considered mean; but I think the amount of +pa’s ground-rents ought to exempt me from any imputation of meanness. If +I didn’t love that sweet lamb so dearly; and if I hadn’t a very sincere +regard for you, Mr. Tredethlyn,--having come into money suddenly myself, +and knowing how trying it is to carry it off carelessly, and not look as +if one was always conscious of being richer than other people;--if I +didn’t--in short, I shouldn’t have stopped behind those curtains,--and +run the risk of being considered a sneak and a listener. But do say that +you forgive me, please, and believe that I meant it for the best?” +pleaded Rosa, whose diction was apt to become rather obscure under the +influence of excitement. + +“What, in Heaven’s name, does it all mean, Miss Grunderson?” asked +Francis, piteously. + +He was ready to cling to the frailest spar by which he might float on +the wide ocean of perplexity, whose billows had so suddenly encompassed +him. + +“Goodness gracious knows--_I_ don’t any more than the dead though if +there _is_ anything in drawing-room tables balancing themselves on +tip-toe and great-coats flying about the room like awkward birds the +dead may know more than we give them credit for,” exclaimed the lively +Rosa, without a single stop; “but it’s very certain there is something +wrong, and whatever it is, that Mr. Lowther is at the bottom of it.” + +“Harcourt Lowther?” + +“Yes. My pa hears a great deal of gossip at the Bell and--at clubs, and +such places; and he always tells me everything he hears. And oh, Mr. +Tredethlyn, if you knew how long I have wished to speak my mind to you, +I am sure you would forgive me for listening just now.” + +“My dear Miss Grunderson, what could you have to say to me?” asked the +bewildered Cornishman. + +“Oh, lots of things. But then you know the grand maxim in society is +that you _mustn’t_ speak your mind. It’s like that Latin person’s rule +of nil thingamy; you mustn’t admire any thing, you know; and so on. And +one must unlearn all one’s Catechism, about loving one’s neighbour as +oneself, and doing unto others as one would they should--which always +reminds me of a winter Sunday afternoon at school and broken chilblains, +because one _did_ break once while I was saying it. And you see in +society the thing is to let your neighbour go his way and to go yours, +and to say, ‘Bless my soul! exactly as I anticipated; paw creatchaw!’ if +your neighbour tumbles over a precipice, from which it would be the very +worst of bad manners to hold him back; and in society, if you saw the +good Samaritan--no, the other person--lying wounded in the road, it +would be a dreadful _incon_--what it’s name?--to pick him up and take +him to an inn and pay for his lodging, because he might call you to +account for your impertinent officiousness as soon as he got well. So, +though I have been bursting to speak my mind almost ever since I’ve +known you, Mr. Tredethlyn, I’ve held my tongue until to-night. But +to-night the climax has come, and I _must_ speak. Oh, you poor dear +thing!” cried Rosa, in a sudden outburst of sympathy, “how you and your +wife have been talked about!” + +“Talked about!--by whom, when, and where?” + +“By everybody, always, everywhere. You don’t know--though you ought to +know, if you ever listened to what was going on around you--how people +_do_ talk. They’ve talked about your dissipation, the hours you have +kept, the places you have been seen at, the people you have been seen +with; about your coming home in hansom cabs in the middle of the night; +and I think if quieter vehicles could be invented for people who stay +out late, or at least the doors made to open differently, there wouldn’t +_be_ so much scandal. They’ve talked about your getting _tipsy_,” +exclaimed Rosa, shaking her head solemnly, and laying a tremendous +stress upon the obnoxious word; “and they’ve said you were drinking +yourself into an early grave, and that Harcourt Lowther was leading you +on to your death in order that he might marry your wife afterwards.” + +“Harcourt lead me--to my death--and--marry Maude! Oh, no, no, no; it is +too horrible!” gasped Francis, staring at Miss Grunderson, with his head +clasped in his hands, and big beads of perspiration upon his brow. + +“I know it is,” answered Rosa; “but they say it; and you must own it was +not a wise thing for you to be so very intimate with a man who was +engaged to your wife before you married her.” + +“Engaged to my wife! _Who_ was engaged to my wife?” + +“Why, Harcourt Lowther, of course! Didn’t you know all about it?” + +“No, so help me Heaven!” + +Miss Grunderson looked very grave. All that she had said had been spoken +in perfect good faith; but, all at once, she began to see that mischief +might come of this free utterance of her thoughts. + +“I thought that you knew it,” she stammered in considerable confusion, +“or I’m sure I should never have said one word about----” + +“How did _you_ come to know it?” asked Francis, turning fiercely upon +the terrified Rosa. + +“Miss Desmond told me.” + +“It is a lie, a malicious lie, invented by Julia Desmond!” + +“I dare say it _is_ something in the way of a story,” responded Miss +Grunderson, who was very anxious to extinguish the sudden conflagration +which her unconscious hand had fired; “people _do_ tell such stories, +you know; not that I think Miss Desmond would speak so positively +unless--but I’m sure if Mrs. Tredethlyn _was_ ever engaged to Mr. +Lowther, she had quite forgotten him when she married you; only _if_ it +was so, I don’t think it was quite honourable of him to be so friendly +with you without telling you all about it.” + +Thus Miss Grunderson--floundering helplessly in a conversational +quagmire--endeavoured to undo any mischief which her indiscretion might +have made. But Francis was not listening to her; he was thinking of all +his life during the last year, and a host of trifling circumstances +recurred to his mind, in evidence against the wife he had loved, and the +friend he had trusted. + +“Yes,” he thought, as he sank moodily down into the nearest chair, and +covered his face with his hands, as heedless of Miss Grunderson’s +presence as if that young lady had been one of her father’s +cabbages,--“yes, it is no lie of Julia Desmond’s. A hundred +recollections arise in my mind to bear witness to its truth. Maude’s +confession about the some one whom she had loved, but whose poverty was +a hindrance to a marriage with her. Harcourt Lowther’s letters from that +beautiful heiress, whose father’s wealth stood between him and +happiness. I knew that they had known each other before he sailed for +Van Diemen’s Land; but I believed him implicitly when he told me +casually one day that they had never been more than the most indifferent +acquaintances. He had a careless, half-contemptuous way of talking of my +wife that galled me to the quick, and that I have sometimes resented. +Fool and dupe that I was! That affected cynicism, that pretended +indifference, was only a part of his scheme. He loved her all the time; +and while with one hand he pushed me away from her into the drunken +orgies that only kill a little more slowly than the secret doses of the +assassin, with the other he held fast the chain that bound him to her; +waiting till he should be able to say, ‘You are free, and I claim the +fulfilment of your broken promise. You are enriched by the death of the +poor dupe who loved you, and poverty need separate us no longer.’ Oh, +God of Heaven, what a fool I have been! and how clearly I can see my +folly, now when it is too late! False wife, false friend! so deeply, +fondly loved, so blindly trusted. I can remember my wife’s face the day +she spoke to me of Harcourt Lowther. Has she been in the base plot +against me? No, I will not believe it. If I have been this man’s blind +dupe, his helpless tool, she may have been as blind, as helpless as +myself. O God, give me strength to trust her still, for my heart must +break if she is base and cruel.” + +A man’s ideas are not apt to arrange themselves very consecutively at +such a time; but it was something after this fashion that Francis +Tredethlyn reflected upon his friend’s treachery, while Rosa stood by +watching him very anxiously, with that fiery eagerness which had +prompted her to speak her mind considerably cooled down by the aspect of +her companion’s distress. + +“Miss Grunderson,” said Francis presently, “whatever the world may have +said against Harcourt Lowther, it is a false and lying world if it ever +slandered the goodness and purity of my wife.” + +“I know that,” answered Rosa, becoming energetic once more; “for of all +the sweet darlings that ever were, she’s the sweetest and the dearest. +And how should _she_ know that people made nasty disagreeable remarks +about Mr. Lowther’s always happening to go to the parties she went to +and calling here oftener than other people, and so on----” + +“He went to parties!” cried Francis. “He told me that he hated parties; +that he scarcely went anywhere.” + +“Ah, but he did, though; and it has been his flirting way--not the +things he has said, you know, but his way or saying them--his +_ompressmong_, you know, that has caused those ill-natured remarks about +Mrs. Tredethlyn. Nothing sets people talking like _ompressmong_.” + +Francis did not answer. Little by little the mists cleared away from his +mental vision; and he saw that Harcourt Lowther had been from first to +last the subtlest schemer who ever plotted the ruin of an honest +blockhead. It had needed only Miss Grunderson’s feminine guesswork to +let sudden light into the cavernous depths of the foulest pitfall that +ever treachery dug under the ignorant footsteps of its victim. Francis +remembered all the bitter ridicule, the sneering compassion, that +Harcourt Lowther had heaped upon the respectable world, from which he +held his dupe aloof, while he plunged him to the very lips in the +dissipations of Bohemia. By this means he had effected as complete a +separation between the husband and wife as if the same roof had ceased +to shelter them. + +“I have thought--when my tempter gave me time to think--that it was +Maude’s coldness alone which separated us; but I know now that it was +the schemer’s work from first to last. She did not love me,--O Heaven, +have pity upon my poor tortured heart!--she loved him, perhaps: but I +might have had some little chance of winning her love if I had remained +at her feet--her slave, her worshipper; but he has held me away from +her, and now she abhors me. She has no feeling but disgust and disdain +for the wretch who has abandoned her to waste his days on a racecourse, +his nights in the drunken orgies of a gaming-house.” + +Francis Tredethlyn sat with his face hidden in his hands, thinking of +his folly, and hating himself for it. Why had he given himself up body +and soul into the power of Harcourt Lowther? why had he been so poor a +dupe in the toils of this man? It was not that he had entertained any +special regard for the gentleman who had pretended to be his friend. In +Van Diemen’s Land he had often had good reason to despise the peevish +grumbler, the selfish Sybarite; and yet for the last year he had taken +the man’s dictum upon every subject, even upon that one vital question +on which the happiness of his life depended. Why had he trusted so +blindly; why had he submitted so slavishly to follow the guiding-strings +that led him into places where he found no pleasure, amongst people who +inspired him with disgust? + +Little by little the answers to these questions shaped themselves in +Francis Tredethlyn’s mind; and he saw that his uncle Oliver’s hoarded +wealth had been at the root of all his misery. The wealth which had +lifted him suddenly into a world that was strange to him; the wealth +which had made him the mark for every schemer; the wealth which had won +him the hand of the woman whose heart could never have been won by his +true and honest love. Adrift in that strange world, the man who had kept +his name unsullied, his soul untainted, his head erect before the faces +of his fellow-men, while his pockets were empty, and his very existence +dependent upon the day’s work that earned him a day’s food, found +himself all at once the most helpless creature that had ever floated at +the mercy of the winds and waves upon a trackless ocean; and he had been +very glad to grasp the first rope that was thrown out to him in all +friendly seeming to guide him safely to the shore. His ignorance had +flung him, unarmed and powerless, into Harcourt Lowther’s arms; and the +man to whom he had felt himself superior while blacking his boots and +obeying his orders out in Van Diemen’s Land became all at once, indeed, +the master, free to work his own will with that most helpless of all +creatures, an uneducated millionaire. + +“If I had a son,” thought Francis Tredethlyn,--and a faint thrill was +stirred in his breast by the mere hypothesis,--“I should send him to +school before I turned him out into the world. Yet I, who am as ignorant +as a baby of the world in which I live, have plunged recklessly into its +vortex, expecting to emerge unhurt. My own folly is the cause of my +destruction. And yet I might have met with an honest friend; I might +have had a loving wife.” + +“A loving wife!” Ah, how the poor faithful heart ached as Francis +thought this! A man’s fireside is the same peaceful sanctuary, whether +the hearth is gorgeous with encaustic tiles and an Axminster rug, or +poorly covered with a scrap of faded Kidderminster, in some humble +chamber where the firelight glimmers on the delf platters that adorn a +cottage-dresser. + +“If Maude had loved me,” Francis argued, brooding moodily upon his +wrongs, “my money need have brought me no misery; my ignorance would +have beguiled me into no danger. Her voice would have regulated my life; +her counsel would have prompted every action. Her smallest wish would +have been my law. And it would have been very hard if the companionship +of a lady had not in time transformed me into a gentleman. But _what_ +are the people with whom I have herded since my marriage--the +acquaintances whom Harcourt Lowther has chosen for me? What! pshaw! why +do I stop to think of all this? She never loved me. I should have tried +to win her love if _he_ had left me to do so. I might have failed even +then as miserably as I have failed now.” + +He groaned aloud as he thought this, and startled Miss Grunderson, who +was sitting at a respectful distance from him folding and unfolding her +parasol, and wondering why she had got into this _galère_, and how she +was to get out of it; and registering a mental vow that she would never +again be tempted by her recollection of her duty to her neighbour to +depart from the manners and customs of polite society. But to her relief +Francis looked up presently, and addressed her. + +“I thank you heartily for having spoken so frankly to me,” he said; “it +is only right that I should be acquainted with the common talk about the +man whose hand I have clasped in friendship almost every day for the +last twelve months. But I hope you will believe that, whatever Mr. +Lowther may or may not be, my wife is good and pure, and worthy of the +warmest affection you can feel for her. Your warmth of feeling has +touched me deeply, Miss Grunderson. I have been living in so false an +atmosphere lately, that I must be dull indeed if I were not affected by +your friendly candour. If--if anything should happen to separate Maude +and me, I should be very glad to think she had such a friend as you. +And--if ever you saw her trusting, as I have trusted, in the truth and +honour of Harcourt Lowther, you would stand between her and that +dangerous adviser, that false friend--would you not, Miss Grunderson?” + +“I would,” answered Rosa, valiantly; “I should speak my mind to her and +to Mr. Lowther into the bargain, as candidly as I have spoken it to you +to-night.” + +“I believe you would,” said Francis. “And now, my dear, God bless you, +and good night!” + +He held out both his hands and clasped Rosa’s pudgy little paws in a +brief grasp, and then strode past her on his way towards the door. + +“You’re not going out to-night, are you, Mr. Tredethlyn?” she asked +anxiously; “it is so _very_ late.” + +Poor little Rosa was rather alarmed by that resolute stride towards the +door, which might only be the first step in some ghastly vengeance to be +taken upon Harcourt Lowther by the stalwart Cornishman. + +“I shouldn’t like to have his blood upon my head, though I _do_ hate and +detest him,” thought Miss Grunderson; “for in these days of +spirit-rapping there’s no knowing how he might spite himself upon me. I +might have him tilting and tip-toeing every table I ever sat down to.” + +“I’m only going to my room to write a letter,” answered Mr. Tredethlyn; +“shall I order my wife’s carriage for you?” + +“No, thank you; as our house is so near, I think I’ll ask one of your +servants to see me home,” replied Rosa, who had no idea of leaving the +ground just yet. “I’ll run up to Mrs. Tredethlyn’s room and say +good-bye. Shall I take her any message from you?” + +“None, thank you; good night.” + +“Good night.” + +Rosa left him still standing in the drawing-room. The spacious and +grandiose apartment, in all of whose costly adornment--from the pictures +on the walls to the Louis-Seize snuff-boxes and lapis-lazuli +_bonbonnières_, and all the expensive frivolities so lavishly scattered +on the tables--there was no single object which had been chosen with any +reference to his taste, with any thought of his comfort or pleasure. No +exquisite toys of “picking-up;” no delicious bargaining with dirty +brokers in the purlieus of Holborn; no evening excursions, +treasure-hunting, among dingy by-ways, where remnants of choice old +china lurk sometimes, unrecognized and unvalued, amongst the rubbish in +a dimly-lighted shop-window; none of the pleasant struggles, the proud +triumphs, which attend the collection of Poverty’s art and _virtu_, had +attended the decoration of this splendid chamber. The Cornishman had +given _carte blanche_ to his friend, and had written cheques--whose +figures he had not remembered five minutes after writing them--in favour +of a celebrated dealer in Bond Street, and an upholsterer in Oxford +Street; and that was all. He smiled bitterly now as he paused to look +round the room before he left it--perhaps for ever. + +“And this has been my home,” he thought. “Home! Better to sit by my +uncle Oliver’s miserly fire, in the dreary house on the Cornish moors, +than to loll in one of those yellow-satin chairs, playing at ball with a +gold snuff-box, and watching the traitor whom I have trusted talking to +my wife.” + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + + + + CHAPTER XXXIV. + + THE LADY AT PETERSHAM. + + +The letter which Francis Tredethlyn wrote in his study was a long one; a +very painful one to write, as it seemed, from the face of the writer, +and the weary sigh which every now and then escaped from his lips, as +his hurrying pen paused for a moment. It was close upon ten o’clock when +he began the letter. The clock chimed the half-hour after eleven while +he was sealing it. He addressed the envelope, and then threw himself +back in his chair to think. He had so much to think of. Maude’s +extraordinary conduct, Rosa Grunderson’s revelation, had overthrown the +whole fabric of his life; and he found himself surrounded by ruins whose +utter chaos he could not contemplate without bewilderment. + +For the last few weeks his thoughts had been almost exclusively devoted +to his cousin Susan, and her wrongs. Found at last, after so many +failures and disappointments, so much delay, the lonely girl had been +welcomed as tenderly as any wanderer who ever returned to the lost +friends of his youth. But Susan Lesley had a sad story to tell her +cousin. The missing link in the chain that Francis Tredethlyn had put +together piece by piece was the letter which had been written from St. +Petersburg by the man whom Susan had loved and trusted--the man whose +diary had revealed to Francis the utter worthlessness of his character. + +Robert Lesley’s letter was only a worthy companion to Robert Lesley’s +diary. In it he coldly and deliberately told the girl who loved him, +that she was not his wife; that the Marylebone marriage was no marriage; +the registrar no recognized official, but a scoundrel hired for a +twenty-pound note to play the part of that functionary; that the +registrar’s office had been no office, but a lodging-house parlour hired +for the occasion, and half-a-dozen doors from the real office. This +statement was, of course, accompanied by the usual heartless sophistries +which run so glibly from the pen, or fall so smoothly from the lips, of +an utterly heartless man. The self-confessed betrayer pleaded the +madness of an all-absorbing love; the stern necessities of well-bred +poverty; the pressure of family circumstances; the fear of a father’s +rage; and then, in conclusion, the writer stated the pitiful stipend +which he was prepared to offer to the woman he had abandoned, and the +child he had disowned. + +Susan showed her cousin this letter, and told him how, after receiving +it, her mind had almost given way under the burden of her great agony. +Then it was that she had gone to Mrs. Burfield, and had written to her +father a long letter, telling him something of her story, but not all; +appealing piteously to the only friend to whom she could appeal; for +faithful Frank was far away in some unknown country. She told her cousin +how she had waited, at first with a faint sickly hope, then with a blank +despair, for some answer from the father to whom she had appealed. But +none came; and when her little stock of money had sunk to its lowest +ebb, she left the dull quiet of Coltonslough to begin a weary, lonely +struggle for bread, which had endured, without one ray of sunlight to +illumine its blank misery, until the summer Sunday afternoon on which +Francis Tredethlyn found her sitting in the nurse’s cottage with her boy +in her arms. + +It was so sad a story, and so sadly common, that there is little need to +dwell upon the unvarnished record of a woman’s battle with poverty in +the heart of a great city. + +“Perhaps I ought to think myself very happy, Francis,” Susan said when +she had told her story; “for I was always able to pay the nurse somehow +for her care of my darling; and the deadly fear of not being able to do +_that_ was the worst trouble I knew in all that dreary time. I have been +face to face with starvation, Frank, very often within the last two +years; but it is not so terrible, when one is used to it. The help +always came at last, and some friendly hand, so unexpected that it might +have dropped down from heaven, has often come between me and despair. I +have sometimes thought that bitter struggle for my daily bread was only +a blessing in disguise, for it kept me from brooding upon my great +sorrow; it sometimes shut from me the thought of Robert’s cruelty and my +own disgrace.” + +“Disgrace!” cried the Cornishman; “no, Susan, there is no shadow of +disgrace upon you except the disgrace of being united to a scoundrel and +a liar. The marriage before the registrar was a _bonâ fide_ marriage, as +binding as if it had been performed by the Archbishop of Canterbury.” + +And then Francis told Susan of his visit to the registrar’s office. This +was the balm which he was able to pour into the deepest wound that ever +tortured a woman’s heart. But the identity of the husband who had lied +in denouncing himself a liar was entirely unknown to Susan. In all the +familiar intercourse of the brief period in which the trusting girl had +been a petted and happy wife, Robert Lesley had not let fall one +careless word relating in the remotest way to his position in life, his +family, or his prospects. When first consulted by Francis upon the +contents of the diary, Messrs. Kursdale and Scardon had instituted an +inquiry as to whether a Mr. Robert Lesley had been inscribed on the +books of St. Boniface any time between 1845 and 1852; and the answer had +been in the negative. No person of the name had been a member of that +college within the last ten years. Francis could only conclude, +therefore, that Mrs. Burfield had been right in her supposition that the +man calling himself Robert Lesley had shielded his identity under a +false name. + +“But your husband was visited by his brother, was he not, Susan?” said +Mr. Tredethlyn, when this subject was discussed between the cousins. + +“Yes; but I knew no more of Robert’s brother than of Robert himself. He +did not come to us often. I heard that he was a lawyer,--a barrister, I +think,--and that he lived in the Temple. I heard even that by accident, +and Robert seemed almost vexed that I should know so much.” + +All these trifling circumstances seemed to point inevitably to one +conclusion; Robert Lesley had intended from the first to abandon his +wife, whenever his own interests rendered it advisable that he should +throw off the tie that bound him to her. Love and selfishness go very +badly hand-in-hand together; and love had soon left selfishness sole +master of the field. + +“But this man shall be made to acknowledge his wife,--to give a name to +his child,” cried Francis, “if he can be found.” + +If he could be found: that was the grand question. But Mr. Tredethlyn +was quite at a loss with regard to the means by which his cousin’s +husband was to be found. In this case even the grand medium by which the +lost are restored to the arms of their friends--the second column of the +“Times”--could be of no avail; for what is the use of advertising for a +man who does not want to reveal himself? + +“If my husband is alive, Providence may throw him across my path some +day,” Susan said, resignedly. “He could not be more dead to me than he +is now if he were buried in the deepest grave that ever held the ashes +of the lost; but if he gave my boy the name that is his right, I think I +could forgive him all the wrong he has done me.” + +It was quite in vain that Francis Tredethlyn sought to carry his cousin +and her son home to his own house. The sorrowful young mother shrank +with absolute terror from the idea of encountering strangers, of finding +herself in a splendid house amongst happy people. + +“I am used to my poverty, Francis,” she said;--“let me be poor still. +Nobody is inquisitive about me, because I am beneath people’s curiosity. +No one questions me about the husband who has deserted me, or extorts my +story from me only to doubt it when it is told. My father would not +believe me; can I expect strangers to be more trusting than he was? No, +Francis; leave me alone in my obscurity. I have a lodging near here, and +I can see my darling every day. I will freely accept from you a little +income which will enable me to live as I have lived, without working as +hard as I have worked; but I will accept no more. I am delighted to +think that my father left his fortune to you, Frank; and I thank and +bless you for having taken so much trouble to find me out.” + +Francis Tredethlyn found it hard work to win Susan away from this +determination, so quietly expressed. But he did at last persuade her to +agree to his own plans for her life, on condition that he should tell +Maude nothing, nor ask Susan to meet her until the missing husband was +found, and compelled to acknowledge his wife and son. Francis consented +to promise this; but he cherished a hope that Susan would relent +by-and-by, when she heard more of Maude’s tender and amiable nature, and +that he would be able to win his wife’s friendship for the simple +country girl who had played with him amongst the daisies in Landresdale +churchyard. + +“You must accept the home I shall prepare for you, Susy,” said Francis, +“or I will have a deed of gift drawn up to-morrow, transferring half my +fortune to you. I am ready to divide your father’s wealth with you as +soon as ever I understand your legal position. In the meantime let me +have the sweetest pleasure my money has ever given me yet--the pleasure +of making a happy home for you and my little kinsman. If you knew how I +have wasted that hoarded money, Susy, on racecourses, and all kinds of +worthless places,” added Mr. Tredethlyn, with a remorseful recollection +of one particular brand of Moselle, for which he had been wont to pay +fourteen shillings a bottle in the purlieus of the Haymarket. + +Susan consented to let her cousin do what he liked with regard to the +place in which she was to live henceforward. What mother could refuse a +bright home for the child she loves? A few words from Francis conjured +up the vision of a garden, where the boy could play under the shadow of +lilacs and laburnums; where the summer breeze would waft the petals of +overblown roses around that golden head. From the happy moment in which +he urged the child’s welfare as an argument against the mother, Francis +Tredethlyn’s triumph was secured. Susan pondered. She thought of the +sweet country air, the bright rooms, with the fresh breath of morning +blowing in at the open windows, the garden, the cow, the chickens, and +all the joys of that sweet rustic paradise which town-bred children hear +of from their mother’s lips, and see only in their dreams. Susan +hesitated. Francis had made friends with the boy by this time, and had +enlisted the child on his side of the argument. When the woman’s +sorrowful pride began to hold out weakly, when the mother’s heart showed +symptoms of relenting, the child’s little chubby arms crept round her +neck, and the child’s tiny voice pleaded in her ear: + +“Peese, mammy, do live in the pooty house, and let Wobert have pooty +flowers.” + +It was the triumph of infantine oratory. Susan turned to her kinsman, +half laughing, half crying, and gave him her hand. + +“You must do as you like, cousin Frank,” she said. “Whatever is best for +Robert must be best for me.” + +Thus it was that Francis Tredethlyn had withdrawn himself in a great +measure from the society of Mr. Lowther, while he scoured the prettiest +suburbs in search of a home for his cousin, and superintended the +necessary improvements and decoration, the selection of the simple +furniture, the arrangement of a garden, in which Robert Lesley’s son +might play happily, his life undarkened by the baseness of an unknown +father. There had been unspeakable pleasure for the Cornishman in the +doing of this work. It was so long since he had been of use to any one; +it was so long since his supremest benevolence to his fellow-men had +taken any higher form than the payment of a dinner-bill, and a handsome +bonus to the waiter. He seemed to breathe a new atmosphere, a fresher, +purer air, when he shook himself clear of Harcourt Lowther’s society, +and spent a summer’s day pottering amongst carpenters and house-painters +in the Petersham cottage. The odour of turpentine and lead did not give +him a headache; it was almost invigorating after the stifling fumes of +musk and mock-turtle, patchouli, and devilled whitebait that had +pervaded the hotel dining-rooms in which he had so often acted as host. +Energetic though Mr. Tredethlyn was in the carrying out of his +arrangements, Susan had been established little more than a week at the +cottage, and the paint on the Venetian shutters was still rather sticky, +when Harcourt Lowther found the upholsterer’s bill, which gave him the +clue to his pupil’s mysterious conduct. To hasten down to Petersham, +find the cottage, refresh himself with dry sherry and soda-water at the +nearest tavern, and to make himself agreeably familiar with the landlord +of the tavern, was all incomparably easy to Mr. Lowther. From the +landlord he heard all about Brook Cottage. How it had been to let for +nearly a twelvemonth; how it had been taken all in a hurry at the end of +May by a dashing-looking gentleman from town, who had been reported +scouring the neighbourhood in hansom cabs, inquiring for houses to let, +for three days at a stretch; how painters and glaziers, carpenters and +gardeners, had set to work in hot haste to renew and revivify everything +in-doors and out; how waggon-loads of the finest gravel from Wimbledon, +and cartloads of the softest turf from Ham, had been laid down in the +garden; how furniture, that was every bit of it new, had been brought +down from London; how the tall, dashing, energetic gentleman in the +hansom cab had been perpetually on the ground with his officious finger +for ever in the pie; and how larger cans of half-and-half had been +consumed by the workmen at the cost of the dashing gentleman than the +landlord of the Prince’s Feathers remembers to have chalked up against +any one customer since he had traded as a licensed victualler. + +All this Mr. Lowther was told; and beyond this, he heard how a lady, +very pretty and quite young, but a little pale and worn-looking, had +arrived at last to take possession of “the prettiest little box that was +ever put together, without regard to expense;” how she was attended by +an elderly female in black, who had evidently seen better days, and who +acted as nurse to a little boy; how two respectable young women had been +hired in the neighbourhood, to act as cook and housemaid; and how, +coming regularly to the Feathers in quest of the kitchen-beer, they had +already reported their mistress as the sweetest and pleasantest of +ladies, and first-cousin to the dashing gentleman in the hansom cab. The +landlord tried to look as if he had no uncharitable thoughts about this +cousinship; but Harcourt Lowther saw that Francis Tredethlyn and the +lady had been subjects of grave scandal in that quiet country place. He +heard that the dashing gentleman had been at Petersham almost every day +for the last week; and that he and the lady passed the greater part of +their time in the garden, where they might be seen at any time from the +high-road,--the gentleman smoking and playing with a little boy, and the +lady working, at a rustic table, under a mulberry-tree. A pot-boy, +coming in from his rounds, as Harcourt lounged at the bar, confirmed the +landlord’s statement when appealed to. He had passed Brook Cottage not +five minutes before, and had seen the lady and gentleman talking to a +gardener, who was doing something to a rose-tree. + +“She’s a rare one for flowers, the lady is,” the potman said, in +conclusion. + +A rare one for flowers: Harcourt Lowther mused gravely upon this remark. + +The fair denizens of Bohemia, to whom he had introduced Francis, were +not generally devoted to floriculture in cottage-gardens, though they +were greedy of gigantic bouquets, to rest on the velvet cushions of +their opera-boxes, or the front seats of their carriages, when they +drove to race meetings. Who was this pale, worn-looking young woman, who +called Francis cousin? Was she really his cousin, that Cornish girl of +whom the soldier had told his master in Van Diemen’s Land, and whose +miserably-executed likeness had reminded Harcourt of another face, whose +owner had played some part in the experience of his life? Was this +inhabitant of the newly-furnished cottage really the Cornish cousin? Mr. +Lowther could scarcely imagine that it was so; for, in that case, why +should Francis have kept her existence a secret from his _fidus Achates_ +in the person of Harcourt himself? + +“Secrecy is only another name for guilt,” thought Mr. Lowther. “Our +friend has gone to the bad in real earnest this time, and I can make a +_coup_. I was getting very tired of the slow game.” + +Armed with this information, the schemer went back to town, to take his +place in Maude’s opera-box, and to lead up to that idea of a morning at +the Cedars, which seemed to originate in Mrs. Tredethlyn’s own brain. +Chance, which had been against him so long, had gone with him +unfailingly in this business. The lucky moment had come; he had got his +lead at last, and had only to play his winning cards. Chance had been +constant to the schemer even in that interview between Francis and Rosa; +for it had happened that, in all Miss Grunderson’s candid outpourings, +she had not dropped a word about Mrs. Tredethlyn’s stroll in the +Petersham meadows; though, even if she had done so, the Cornishman might +have been very slow to perceive that an accidental glimpse of himself +and gentle Susy, in friendly companionship, could have been the primary +cause of that stormy greeting which he had received at the hands of his +wife. Francis accepted his wife’s passionate outburst as only the climax +of the disgust and weariness with which he had inspired her. + +“She reproaches me for the life I have been leading lately,” he said +bitterly; “but she does not understand her own feelings. It is not my +life, but me she hates. It is myself that inspires the loathing and +contempt which she talked of, and not my late hours or my gambling and +horse-racing.” + +After sitting for some time plunged in a gloomy reverie, in the dreary +library, where the backs of the books he never opened seemed to frown +upon him in their sombre Russia leather brownness, Francis stirred as +the little black marble clock on the mantel-piece chimed the quarter +after twelve, and felt in his waistcoat-pocket for a note which he had +found waiting for him on his table the previous night. It was a tiny +twisted _poulet_ from Harcourt Lowther:-- + + + “DEAR FRANK,--A line to remind you of to-morrow night. You will + be expected any time after nine.--Yours always, + + “H. L.” + + +This reminder referred to a bachelor’s supper which Mr. Lowther had +arranged at his lodgings; a party at which there was to be what the host +called a quiet rubber. A rubber played with that deadly quiet which +attends the science of whist when heavy amounts tremble in the balance, +and a sum that a poor man would call a fortune may depend on the +player’s judicious choice between a five and a seven. Such a rubber as +that which the well-known Sir Robert was once concluding, when, just as +he pondered over his two last cards, a thoughtless looker-on happened to +break the solemn silence by one luckless word, and lo, the chain of +scientific reasoning dropped to pieces,--the popular statesman played +the wrong card, and lost a thousand pounds. It was not often that +Harcourt Lowther entertained his friends; but when Francis lapsed into a +temporary stagnation, the master was apt to keep his pupil going on the +road to ruin by such an entertainment as this. The quiet rubber at Mr. +Lowther’s lodgings generally led to other rubbers elsewhere, or cursory +appointments for Liverpool or Newmarket, or Chester or Northampton, or a +dinner at Richmond, gaily cut for at blind hookey while the men were +rising from the whist-table. It was a quarter-past twelve now. It would +be nearly one o’clock before the fastest hansom could carry Mr. +Tredethlyn to the Strand. Francis looked from the clock on the +chimney-piece to the scrap of paper in his hand; hesitated for a few +moments, with a black frown upon his face, and then started hastily from +his lounging attitude, and looked about him for his hat. + +“There couldn’t be a better opportunity,” he muttered, “for saying what +I want to say to him.” + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + + + + CHAPTER XXXV. + + A HASTY RECKONING. + + +Harcourt Lowther had never played so bad a rubber as that with which he +beguiled the evening while waiting Francis Tredethlyn’s appearance at +the little bachelor-party assembled in his rooms. There was the usual +blending of the hawk and pigeon tribe at Mr. Lowther’s reunion: the +birds of prey distinguishable by the purple blackness of their dyed +moustaches and the crow’s-feet round their faded eyes; the innocent +fledglings fresh-coloured and tawny, with a profound belief in their own +wisdom and a supreme contempt for everything outside the narrow circle +in which they condescended to exist. + +Mr. Lowther suffered his partner to knock under ignominiously to +antagonistic sevens and nines, while the big cards lurked idle in his +own hand, to fall at the close into the ravenous jaws of the eleventh, +twelfth, and thirteenth trumps; nor was he to be roused into decent play +by the unqualified remonstrances of his victim. He was thinking of +Maude. It was not the face of the queen of spades which he saw as he sat +hopelessly staring at the card in a vain endeavour to concentrate his +attention; it was Maude’s speaking, passionate countenance which looked +at him, all aglow with angry feeling. He saw her in all her beauty as he +had seen her that afternoon,--the tremulous lips, the flashing blue +eyes,--for there are blue eyes which in anger have more fire than the +starriest orbs that ever veiled their lightnings under the cloudy lace +of an Andalusian marchesa. His love for her--which was one of the most +selfish passions of a selfish nature--had grown and strengthened day by +day since the hour of his return, and had kindled into an all-absorbing +flame now that he seemed so near his triumph. + +_Was_ he near his triumph? That question occurred to him several times +as he sat opposite his friend Captain Harrison of the Spanish Legion, +playing the unluckiest rubber that the Captain had been engaged in for +weeks,--“And the beggar had such first-rate cards too,” as the Captain +said afterwards, politely criticising his friend’s play; “if he hadn’t +kep’ his trumps so jolly dark we could have carried everything before +us.” + +Was he near his triumph? He had been playing for two stakes--the woman +he loved and the fortune he envied. He knew Maude Tredethlyn well enough +to know that so long as her husband lived, she was as far beyond his +reach as the stars which shone down upon him as he walked home from +Stuccoville, and of whose light he thought so little. Maude, as the +daughter of an insolvent trader, was a lovely being whom he had felt no +reluctance to resign; for he had looked forward with a horrible +foresight to the day when the girl he loved should be again within his +reach; no longer as a penniless spinster, but a wealthy widow. _This_ +had been the goal which Harcourt had seen at the end of that weary road +along which he conducted the young man who trusted him. No physician +ever watched a patient more intently than Mr. Lowther watched the slow +undermining of the Cornishman’s glorious constitution under the +influence of late hours and hard drinking. The bloodshot eyes, the +unsteady hand, the failing appetite, the uncertain spirits, the feverish +unrest, were all diagnostics that marked the progress of the schemer’s +work. Mr. Lowther had seen so many young men drop down in the poisoned +atmosphere to which he introduced Maude’s husband. He hoped that the end +which had come to so many would come to this ignorant, blundering +rustic, into whose lap blind Plutus had cast the wealth that should have +fallen to better men. The end must come; for the stupid Crœsus tumbled +so helplessly into the snare, and abandoned himself so completely to his +captor’s mercy. It was only a question of patience. The end would come +in due time: and then there was the woman he loved, and the richest +widow in London, to reward the plotter’s patience, to crown his efforts +with happiness and success. To-day’s business, Harcourt Lowther argued, +as he played that unfortunate rubber, could not be otherwise than a +lucky stroke, likely to hurry matters to a crisis. Francis had slipped +out of his hands so often of late, had kept better hours and drunk less. +But a serious quarrel with Maude would inevitably fling Mr. Tredethlyn +back upon the spurious Lethe of the brandy-bottle, and would hasten the +schemer’s work to its fatal close. “I think I have shut the door of his +home upon him,” thought Harcourt; “it will be strange if he is not glad +to drop completely into the groove in which I want to see him.” + +This, in plain English, is the plan which Harcourt Lowther had made for +himself; though he would scarcely have put his scheme into such very +plain words, even in his own thoughts. Iago, in a play or a novel, is +obliged to give utterance to his schemes with tolerable clearness; but +the real Iago is reticent, even in commune with himself, and huddles his +blackest thoughts into some dark corner of his mind, where they lie +conveniently hidden from the eye of conscience. + +Before twelve o’clock Mr. Lowther had abandoned his place at the +whist-table to his brother; and after lounging behind the chair of a +young man who was playing _écarté_, and making a random bet now and +then, the host proposed supper,--a proposition which was received very +warmly by the men who were losing money, and very coolly by the winners. +Harcourt Lowther’s supper was almost as unceremonious an affair as that +memorable entertainment in Lant Street, Borough, at which Mr. Robert +Sawyer played the part of host. A young man, hired for the occasion from +a neighbouring tavern, laid the cloth very rapidly, while the guests +lounged against the corners of the mantel-pieces, and grouped themselves +in little knots, to discuss coming events in the racing world, or to +criticise current pictures and current theatricals, with an occasional +spice of current scandal. + +The supper was very simple. There were unlimited supplies of those +delicate little oysters which seem created with a special view to +bachelors’ supper-parties, and the refreshment of exhausted playgoers; +and whose native beds the ignorant foreigner might not unnaturally +imagine to lie somewhere at the back of the Strand. And to wash these +down, Mr. Lowther had provided Chablis, white Hermitage, and +Rüdesheimer. There were spatch-cocks and devilled kidneys, fried +potatoes, monster lobsters, marvellous cheeses from the remotest cantons +of Switzerland, and the most delicate varieties of green-stuff from a +French fruiterer’s in the purlieus of Leicester Square. There was no +pretence of an elaborate entertainment; but there was an open case of +sparkling Moselle by the side of Mr. Lowther’s chair, into which he +dipped about once in five minutes; and the young man from the tavern had +been initiated into the mysteries of a claret-cup, which he compounded +at a rickety little sideboard in the inner room. + +So far as the guests went, the supper was a success. There was just the +amount of confusion which gives a picnic flavour to a meal, and which +seems an infallible stimulant of animal spirits. Mr. Lowther’s visitors +enjoyed themselves immensely, and the party was becoming boisterous in +its gaiety, when the door was opened, and Francis Tredethlyn walked in. + +Harcourt Lowther pushed away the Moselle case, which was now only filled +with tumbled straw and empty bottles, and called for a chair, which was +edged into the corner at the host’s right hand. + +“You’ll have some supper, Tredethlyn?” he said, while Francis was +shaking hands with some of the men. They were all known to him, and all +knew his story, and had a pretty clear idea that Harcourt was what they +called “cleaning him out,” in the most approved style by which the +process can be performed. “These things are all cold, I’m afraid. Jones, +run across and get some fresh oysters, and you can order another +spatch-cock--to be ready in a quarter of an hour at the latest. Sit +down, dear boy. What the deuce have you been doing with yourself all +night? Give him elbow-room, Harding, that’s a good fellow, and don’t +knock your ashes on to this corner of the table-cloth just yet. Now, +then, Philcote, the ‘Last Rose of Summer’ as soon as you like; but you +may as well make up your mind what key you’ll sing it in _before_ you +begin.” + +Francis called back the man as he was hurrying from the room. + +“Stop!” he cried; “you needn’t order anything more--for me. I shan’t eat +supper to-night.” + +Something in his tone arrested every other voice; and there was a +silence as sudden and as complete as if some magician had waved his wand +and changed Harcourt Lowther’s guests into stone. Something in his look +attracted every eye, and held it fixed in a wondering stare upon his +face. Mr. Philcote, who fancied himself an amateur Sims Reeves, was +disturbed in his calculation of that vocal bullfinch to be cleared +between the third and fourth notes of the “Last Rose of Summer,” and +abandoned all thoughts of singing his favourite ballad. + +The Cornishman’s colourless face and disordered hair and dress might +have suggested the idea that he had been drinking; but there was an +inscrutable something in that white face which was not compatible with +drunkenness. Harcourt Lowther looked at him nervously. The marital +quarrel had come off, evidently, and Francis took matters very +seriously. + +“Come, Mr. Troublefeast,” cried the host, “we’re not going to stand this +sort of thing, you know. We’ll have no statue of the Commander stalking +in upon us in the midst of our fun--without Mozart. What the deuce is +the matter with you, dear boy? Roderick, pass that tankard this way, +will you? You fellows down there contrive to keep everything to +yourself. Let the rosy vintage circulate. There’s another half-dozen of +the claret in the next room, and no end of lemons. So the moment for the +selfishness of the savage to overpower the civilization of the gentleman +has not arrived. Come, Frank, take down the shutters, and light up; +you’ve made us all as quiet as the frozen crew described by that +pertinacious old bore, the Ancient Mariner. Take a long dip into that +tankard, old fellow, and come up bright again.” + +Mr. Lowther struck his small white hand lightly upon his friend’s +shoulder as he concluded. Francis had dropped into the place offered to +him, and sat there, looking like nothing _but_ the Commander, in his +stony rigidity of face and figure. As Harcourt Lowther’s hand alighted +on his shoulder, he startled every one by throwing it deliberately away +from him. + +“I have had enough of your friendship, thank you,” he said; +“henceforward, if we are to be anything at all to each other, I had +rather we should be foes--I may have better luck perhaps that way.” + +“Tredethlyn! are you drunk? or mad?” + +“Neither, but I _have_ been both; for I have trusted you. You needn’t +ask me what I mean,” said Francis, interrupting Harcourt Lowther’s +exclamation by a rapid gesture of his uplifted hand; “I am going to tell +you, and very plainly. Gentlemen, you were going to listen to a song +just now; have you any objection to hearing a story instead? There will +be time for your ballad afterwards, you know, Philcote. My story is not +a long one.” + +Harcourt Lowther had turned very pale. His light blue eyes glittered, +and the slim white fingers of his right hand closed involuntarily on the +knife that had been lying near them. He looked as a man might look, who +marching proudly upon the road to victory, saw the earth yawn asunder +beneath his feet, and knew all at once that his next step must hurl him +to a dreadful death. He was very quiet; but the quivering of his thin +nostrils, the quickening of his breath, and his faded colour, betrayed a +degree of hesitation which set his guests wondering, and infused a dash +of excitement into the wind-up of the little banquet. The highest +development of Christianity cannot quite extinguish the natural savage. +Cromwell’s Ironsides did murderous work with the gospel in their wallets +and pious exclamations upon their lips; and it seems the attribute of +human nature to delight in a row. The guests at Harcourt Lowther’s +supper-table pricked up their ears with one accord, and it was with +considerable difficulty that they managed to keep up a faint attempt at +that kind of conversation which had engaged them, in twos and threes, +before Francis Tredethlyn’s entrance. When they spoke to one another +now, it was only in undertones, and their disjointed sentences revealed +the fact that they were listening to the speaker at the end of the +table. But when Francis spoke of telling a story, the company dropped +all pretence of indifference to him; and listened with a polite +appearance of perfect unconsciousness as to any unfriendly intention on +the part of the late visitor. + +“Sing your song, Philcote,” said Harcourt Lowther, resolutely; “we want +no stories--we’ve no time for twaddle of that sort. Let’s have a good +song or two, and then we’ll go into the next room for a rubber.” + +Mr. Philcote, whose nerves were fluttered by the ominous gloom that had +so suddenly fallen upon the assembly, gave a despairing cough, and made +a husky plunge at the A flat on which he should have begun the sweetest +song-writer’s sweetest song; but before he had articulated his +initiatory “’Tis,” a big man with a black moustache, who owed Harcourt +Lowther a grudge, and had been consuming the best bits of the lobsters, +and the lion’s share of the Moselle, under a mental protest, interrupted +the timid singer: + +“Let’s have the story first, and the ‘Last Rose’ afterwards,” he said. +“Fire away, Tredethlyn; your audience have supped luxuriously, and are +in good humour.” + +“I dare say it’s a common story enough in your set, Boystock,” answered +Francis; “but it isn’t a long one. It is the story of a man who was +lifted one day from poverty to wealth, and found himself all at once +alone in a world as strange to him as if he had been transported out of +this planet into another inhabited by a different species.” + +“Egad,” muttered Mr. Boystock, “I wish somebody would transport me!” + +“Ah, it isn’t likely, old fellow, in _that_ way,” murmured his +neighbour. + +“For some time the country-bred cub--he was country-bred, and what you +would call a cub--got on well enough. He floundered into a few mistakes, +and he floundered out of them, after his own ignorant fashion. I think +there is a providence for such men, as there is for drunkards, and so +long as they stagger along _alone_, they come to very little grief. He +did a great many silly things with his money, I dare say; but I think he +_once_ did a generous thing--though, God knows, in doing it, he only +followed the blind impulse of his undisciplined heart as ignorantly as +if he had been some blundering Newfoundland dog that pulls the mistress +he loves out of the water where he sees her drowning. His wealth +prospered with him, though he had cared little enough for it when it +fell into his hands. By means of it he was able to save the woman he +loved from a great trouble; and in her boundless gratitude for the +service which he valued so lightly, she abandoned herself to the purest +impulse that ever stirred a noble breast, and offered him her hand. If +he had been generous or wise, he would have refused the hand which could +not give him a heart. He was only--in love. Selfishly, stupidly, he +seized the proffered sacrifice; too besotted in his blind passion to +perceive that it was a sacrifice.” + +Mr. Lowther’s guests stared blankly at one another. They had not dropped +their own talk to hear such stuff as this. Harcourt sat very still, with +his hand always upon the knife. At the other end of the table lounged +Roderick, the very picture of well-bred indifference. He felt that his +brother had dropped in for it; but he had no idea of interrupting the +action of the little drama by any fraternal championship. + +“Let them fight it out their own way,” he thought; “I like to see the +white man suffer.” + +“The country-bred cub was still fresh to the intoxication of his fancied +happiness, when a man who had been familiar with him in his poverty came +from the distant part of the world where they had met and known each +other, and offered to be his friend. The cub’s ignorance of life was so +complete, that he did not know it was possible for a man who bore her +Majesty’s commission, and called himself a gentleman, to be a liar and a +villain. He trusted his old acquaintance implicitly, and accepted him as +a friend--believing, still in his boorish ignorance, that there was such +a thing as friendship, or, at the worst, an honourable good fellowship +between honest men. His friend did not tell him that he had been the +engaged lover of the woman the boor was going to marry; and when the +young couple began their new life, he planted himself in their house; +and his first act was to shut the husband from the home whose dingiest +room was a paradise, so long as it was sanctified by the presence of an +idolized wife. Will any one at this table guess the plot which the +boor’s friend hatched against him in the hour when their hands first met +in friendship? I think not. The gentleman--polished, well-born, highly +educated--allowed the country cub to marry the woman he loved; reserving +to himself the hope of marrying her, enriched by the cub’s money, when +the cub was dead. This once arranged, there was only one thing more to +be settled; and that was the cub’s life. Unluckily he was a brawny +six-foot fellow, with the constitution of a prize-fighter. But then +prize-fighters are not always long-lived; their habits are so apt to be +against them. Well, gentlemen, there have been men who have undermined a +victim’s strength with small doses of antimony, while they smiled in his +face, and called him brother. We manage these things better nowadays. +The gentleman resolved that the boor should drink himself to death.” + +“Is this the plot of a French novel?” asked Roderick, superciliously, +after a brief silence, in which Francis Tredethlyn had paused to take +breath; “if it is, you had better tell us the title of the book, and let +us read it in the original. There may be some chance of our thinking it +interesting _then_.” + +“There are shameful things done out of novels as well as in them, Mr. +Lowther,” answered Francis. “What I am telling you is the truth. The +gentleman took the wealthy boor under his protection, and from that hour +the cub’s mind and the cub’s body began to wither under the influence of +a vice which of himself he held in abhorrence, but which in the dull +indifference of a man who has no hope to elevate him, no aim to strive +for, he was weak enough to accept as the cure for all his troubles. What +did it matter how many glasses of brandy he drank, or how often he +staggered across his dreary threshold in the early morning, stupefied by +foul gaslit atmospheres and bad wines? His friend took care to remind +him that there was no one to be sorry for his misdeeds, or to rejoice in +his repentance if he repented. He could not sink so low that his wife +would be affected by his degradation; he could not rise so high that she +would be proud of his elevation. His friend dinned the bitter truth into +the wretch’s ear. The beautiful young wife despised him; the wealth that +other men envied was useless to him, except in its power to buy the +oblivion of the brandy-bottle. From the hour in which his well-born +friend took him under his protection, the boor never did a generous +action, or heard a noble sentiment; and he very rarely went home sober. +He was drinking himself to death as fast as a strong man can, when +Providence took compassion on him, and gave him a duty to fulfil. A +helpless girl, his kinswoman, was thrown across his path, and all at +once he found himself of use in the world. From that moment his friend’s +scheme was overthrown. Good-bye to the brandy-bottle and the bad wines! +The boor had a friendless woman dependent on his protection, and he had +something to live for. He determined to sink the past; bid farewell to +the wife whose affection he was unable to win; turn his back upon the +circle he had lived in and the people who had known him; and finish his +days honestly among honest men.” + +“‘So he died, and she very imprudently married the barber,’” exclaimed +Mr. Boystock. “It’s a very good story, I dare say; but apropos to what?” +demanded the gentleman, looking at Harcourt Lowther with a malicious +twinkle in his little black eyes. “I don’t see the connection with the +proverbial _bottes_. What does it all mean?” + +“It means, gentlemen, that I am the boor who has been the dupe of a +villain, and will be so no longer; and the name of the villain is +Harcourt Lowther.” + +There was a moment’s silence, followed by a sudden smashing of glass. A +pair of small sinewy white hands fastened cat-like upon Francis +Tredethlyn’s throat, and he and Harcourt Lowther were grappling each +other in a fierce struggle. It was very long since the gentleman had +been weak enough to get in a passion. He had sat as still as a statue +while the Cornishman set forth his indictment, waiting to see how +completely he had failed; and now that he knew that his plot, so +deliberately laid, so patiently carried out, was only a bungling +business after all--for the man _must_ have bungled who fails so +utterly--Mr. Lowther lost his head all in a moment, and abandoned +himself to a sudden access of rage, that reduced him to the level of a +wounded tiger. + +It was scarcely with Francis that he was angry. What did it matter how +this man spoke of him or thought of him? What did it matter that these +other men should hear him accused of a baseness, which was only an +intellectual improvement upon the vulgar process by which the +gentlemanly birds of prey plucked the tender plumage of their victims? +All this was nothing. It was against himself--against his own +failure--that Harcourt Lowther’s fury was raging; only like all fury of +that kind, it was ravenous for vengeance of some sort. It was only for +about twenty seconds that his claws were fastened on Francis +Tredethlyn’s throat. A Cornish heavy-weight is not exactly the kind of +person for a delicately-built Sybarite to wrestle with very +successfully. + +“We are rather celebrated for this sort of thing in my county,” Mr. +Tredethlyn muttered between his set teeth, as he loosened Harcourt +Lowther’s grasp from his throat, and hurled him in a kind of bundle to a +corner of the room, where he fell crashing down amongst the ruins of a +dumb-waiter, half buried under a chaos of broken bottles and +lobster-shells. + +Roderick Lowther would have sprung upon his brother’s foe in the next +minute, but the other men hustled round him and hemmed him in. + +“Don’t you see the fellow’s a Hercules?” cried one of them; “let him +alone, Lowther.” + +“Let me go!” roared the diplomatist; “I know my brother’s a +false-hearted rascal, but I won’t stand by and see a Lowther played at +ball with by any boor in Christendom. Let me get at him, Boystock, or I +shall hurt you.” But Francis had walked quietly to the door, and turning +with his hand upon the lock, waited for a moment’s pause in the +confusion before he spoke. + +“Gentlemen,” he said, “you are witnesses that your friend attacked me. I +have no quarrel with Mr. Roderick Lowther; and as I am the bigger man of +the two, there would be no credit for either him or me in a scuffle +between us. If Harcourt Lowther wants to see me, he will be able to find +me any time this week at the Grand Hotel, Covent Garden; after this week +I shall sail for South America by the first packet that leaves +Liverpool.” + +He paused a second time. There was no answer. The diplomatist had +thought better of his thirst for fraternal retribution. + +“Why should I get myself into a mess about the beggar?” he thought; “he +wouldn’t see _me_ out of a scrape, I dare say.” + +So Francis departed unquestioned: not to return to the Stuccoville +mansion, but to walk up Southampton Street, and across Covent Garden, to +seek a shelter in the old lodgings where he had lived so pleasantly in +his bachelor days. + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + + + + CHAPTER XXXVI. + + POOR FRANK’S LETTER. + + +Maude shut herself in her own rooms after her interview with Francis, +and refused to see any one except Julia. She wanted some one to cling to +in her sudden distress, and was fain to throw herself upon the Irish +girl’s bosom for consolation. + +Then Julia Desmond had her revenge. It was very sweet to see the woman +who had usurped the cup of prosperity once held to her own lips brought +down so low; more wretched in the midst of her wealth and grandeur than +Julia had been in her lonely attic at Bayswater, with a July sun glaring +in upon her through a curtainless window, and the drowsy voices of her +pupils droning in her ears. The pleasure that thrilled through her +breast as she held Maude Tredethlyn in her arms, and heard her declare, +amidst passionate sobs, that Francis had been false and base and wicked, +and that she was the most miserable woman in the world, was a sensation +more exquisite than Miss Desmond had ever known before. For the honour +of humanity, that wicked pleasure did not last very long. The daughter +of Patrick Macnamara Ryan O’Brien Desmond was not altogether base. Maude +was at her feet, and she was avenged. It was her rival’s insolent +happiness--happiness always _does_ seem insolent to the unhappy--that +had galled her to the quick. The two women were on a level now, and +Julia forgave her old companion. + +“I told you he was a villain,” she said; and that was the only unkind +speech she uttered. After that, she was comforter, confidante, friend, +and she was almost sorry to see the endurance of Maude’s grief. “You +have your fine house and your carriages still,” she said, as the young +wife sat on the ground at her feet in the abandonment of her sorrow; +“you could never have married Francis Tredethlyn for any other reason +than the wealth he could give you. What does it matter to you whether he +is true or false? You never loved him.” + +“No,” answered Maude, naïvely, “I suppose not. But it is so shameful of +him to care for anybody else. And from what Harcourt Lowther says, he +does care for that horrible person; and to leave me, Julia, day after +day, and to be--there--all the time--in a garden--smoking--looking as +much at home as if he had lived there all his life--I never can forgive +him, Julia!” + +“Of course not,” Miss Desmond replied promptly; “but I don’t see that +you need make yourself so very unhappy about his conduct. You will have +a formal separation, I suppose. Your papa, or your papa’s solicitors, +will manage that, no doubt; and you will live quietly in a smaller house +than this. You will not be able to go so much into society, you know; +for it is so difficult for a woman who is separated from her husband to +escape scandal, however careful she may be,” Julia added, with +considerable satisfaction. It is so nice to sit in the dust and mingle +our sympathetic tears with those of the fallen powers who have lately +queened it over us. + +Maude’s sobs redoubled. + +“Society!” she exclaimed. “I hate society! Yes, it’s no use talking, +Julia. I know what you’re going to say about my going out to three +parties a night, and so on; but I don’t like it--nobody likes it. They +get into the whirlpool, and there they are. If you go to Mrs. A.’s +Thursday, you must go to Lady B.’s Friday, or you offend her; and if you +go once, you must go on going, or it seems as if you didn’t like the +people you met; and then, if you don’t ask people, you are accused of +dropping them; and if you ask strange people, you are accused of picking +them up; and if you always ask the same people, your parties are called +slow; and if you ask different people, you are called capricious. I am +so tired of the world, Julia,” sighed Mrs. Tredethlyn. “When I drive any +distance to dinner on an autumn evening, I always envy the people who +live in little villas, and drink tea at seven o’clock in pretty parlours +that I can see in the firelight. They seem _so_ happy. I never hear a +muffin-bell--don’t laugh, Julia; but there _is_ something peculiar in a +muffin-bell--without thinking how hollow my life is, compared to the +lives of the people who eat the muffins. And then I fancy that I should +have been so much happier in a pretty little cottage in St. John’s Wood, +with a tiny, tiny back-garden sloping down to the canal, and a still +tinier garden in front for Floss to bark in. I used to think sometimes,” +continued Maude dropping her voice and speaking with some slight +embarrassment, “that Francis and I would get to understand each other +better by-and-by, and that we should lead quite a Darby-and-Joan sort of +life, doing a great deal of good, and going out much less. But, of +course, that hope is quite gone now. I can never endure his society +again. I could never trust him. And oh, Julia, I did trust him so +implicitly! I had such a belief in his goodness that I despised myself +for not being better worthy of him. And to think that he should deceive +me so cruelly; that he should have been deceiving me all along, leading +a wicked life amongst wicked people for his own pleasure; when I fancied +that he was driven from his home by my indifference, and reproached +myself so bitterly for being wanting in my duty to him.” + +In this strain poor Maude discoursed at intervals for some hours. Julia +was very patient, sympathetic even, in a hard kind of way; but she bore +with all her weight upon the evidence of Francis Tredethlyn’s perfidy, +and she drained the cup of her triumph to the very dregs. + +It was not till the next morning that the letter which Francis had left +in the library was delivered to his wife. She was sitting in her +boudoir, with an untasted breakfast before her, and the sympathetic +Julia on the other side of the table, when her maid brought the missive, +which a housemaid had discovered at daybreak on her master’s table, two +or three hours before Mr. Tredethlyn’s valet found the little bedroom +behind the library untenanted, and perceived that his master had not +slept at home. + +The Cornishman’s letter was very simply worded. Maude opened it hastily +in the hope that it might contain some justification of her husband’s +conduct. But he did not even allude to his delinquencies, and confined +himself to bidding an earnest and friendly farewell to the wife who had +never loved him. Tears of disappointment, humiliation, regret, poured +slowly down Maude’s cheeks as she read the letter. It was the first time +Francis had written to her since her marriage; and there was something +almost strange to her in the sight of his bold commercial hand, whose +accustomed regularity had been a little disturbed by the writer’s +agitation. + + + “MY VERY DEAR WIFE,--I write to you for the first time since it + has been my privilege to address you by that sacred name. If I + could tell you the pride and happiness I once felt in that + privilege, when first you laid your hand in mine, when first I + heard you called by my name, I should be a very different person + from what I am; and then it is possible this letter need never + have been written. I write to bid you good-bye, Maude; and I + think the best proof I can give you of my love is the proof I + give you now, when I bring my mind to the necessity of our + separation, and resign myself to the knowledge that I may never + see your face again upon this earth. + + “I will not tell you how soon I discovered your + indifference--how soon another person demonstrated to me that + your feeling towards me was even something worse than + indifference; that it was dislike and contempt which I inspired + in your mind. My dense ignorance of the world, and your amiable + nature, would have prevented my making this discovery of my own + accord. But there are always plenty of those ‘good-natured + friends’ the man in the play talks about. _I found such a + friend._ If you have any curiosity upon the subject, Rosa + Grunderson, who is a good honest-hearted little girl, will tell + you the name of the man who opened my eyes to the full misery of + my position. In writing this, Maude, I have no thought of + reproach against _you_. To me you have been and always will be + something so bright and lovely as to be amenable to none of the + common laws which govern common natures. When you offered to be + my wife, you yielded to a generous impulse; and it is I who + deserve reproach for having been so base in my blind selfishness + as to accept the sacrifice you were willing to offer in + repayment of a fancied obligation. I cannot undo the past; but I + can at least set you in some manner free from the fetters you + forged for yourself under the influence of that brief + enthusiasm. So long as I live, one of the miseries of my life + will be the knowledge that I shut you out of a brighter fate; + that I deprive you of a more worthy companion; that the greatest + sacrifice I can make in atonement of the past will only make you + the lonely widow of a living husband. But I can at least rid you + of the society of a man whose presence inspires you with disgust + and loathing. O Maude, I am quoting your own words; spoken so + deliberately, so coldly, that I should be indeed mad and + cowardly, were I to shrink from accepting them in their fullest + import. I might have doubted until to-night; I might have hugged + myself with the notion that a liar and a scoundrel, for his own + base purposes, had taught me to think myself despised and + disliked; but your own lips have spoken, and I can doubt no + longer. Oh, my darling, my pet, my beloved, this seems so like a + reproach; but it is not, it is _not_. + + “I am going to South America. When you read this, my + preparations will no doubt have begun. If possible, I shall sail + immediately. Of all the men who ever left England for that fiery + young world out yonder, there was never, perhaps, any one better + adapted to be happy and successful there than I am. I bid + good-bye for ever to the idle dissipations, the drunken orgies + in which I have sometimes found distraction, but never + happiness. And I begin a new life in a new field of labour. My + uncle’s money has been the root of all my misery, and I shall + take very little of that useless gold to the other shore. I + don’t think I was ever guilty of any great folly while I was a + poor man; but since I have been a rich one, my life has seemed + one long mistake. + + “I write so much about myself and my own plans because I do not + want the memory of me, or of any sorrow which I may feel in this + parting, to cloud the brightness of your future; and I + understand your generous nature well enough to know that you + will be happier if you can believe that I am happy. O Maude, if + you could know how anxious I am that the life before you should + be a bright and happy one, you might almost forgive me for the + pain my selfish folly has inflicted upon you! My poor, + generous-hearted girl! my innocent darling! you thought it was + so light a thing to link your life to the life of a man whom you + could not love; and you have borne your burden so quietly. I + cannot release you from the chain that binds you to me, but I + will do my best to make that chain a light one. And, for the + rest, I go to a country in which life and death walk hand in + hand together. I take with me all an ignorant man’s love of + adventure, a soldier’s indifference to danger. Wear your chain + patiently, darling,--you may not have to wear it long. But one + word of warning from the man who has loved you so foolishly, + and, until this night, so selfishly. You have married hastily + once. Weigh well what you do if ever you marry again. If you + accepted for your husband an ignorant West-country boor when you + married me, I was at least an honest man. If I die, Maude, and + you are free to make a second marriage, be sure that the husband + of your choice has something of your own noble character; as + well as some smattering of the accomplishments that please you, + and the tricky jargon about art and literature which passes for + cleverness. I was anxious once to make myself a gentleman for + your sake, Maude; and when we have been visiting together, I + have listened to the men’s talk, for I wanted to find out how it + was done; and you could never guess how spurious some of that + brilliant conversation sounds to a man who _only_ listens. I + used to read some of your Mudie books in my own room sometimes + of a morning,--Froude, and Carlyle, Burton, Barth, and so on; + and I’ve heard men laying down the law about them at night, and + I have known from their talk that they hadn’t read a page of the + book itself, and were only airing the second-hand opinions + picked up out of a review. + + “I saw you shudder once, Maude, because I didn’t know it was the + right thing to say ‘Barkley Square;’ and pronounced the word as + it is spelt. But oh, what bosh I’ve heard the Barkley-Squarers + talk sometimes about things I do understand! I’ve heard a man at + a dinner-party hold forth about our convict system sometimes, + and transportation, and Van Diemen’s Land, till I’ve been + inclined to get up and do something to him with a carving-knife; + and oh, the self-satisfied manner of the creature, and the way + he has lifted his eyebrows and looked at _me_, if I ventured to + express any opinion upon the subject! In South America there may + be fever and disease, perhaps--privation, danger; but there will + be no Barkley Square. I may meet with Aztecs, who may maltreat + or even assassinate me; but they won’t have little bits of glass + that they can’t see through to hitch into their eyes whenever I + speak to them. And they won’t lift their eyebrows and begin to + whisper about me the moment I enter a room. And I shall never + hear them say, ‘Oh, the _rich_ Tredethlyn, is it? Gad, what a + clodhopper!’ + + “Why do I write about these things, Maude, when I am writing to + bid you good-bye for ever? Only because I want you to believe + there is _something_ wanting even in the perfect world in which + you live. If my death should set you free in your youth, marry + again, dear, by all means; but marry a man whose truth and + loyalty have been proved by a life of unblemished honour; marry + a man who has set his mark upon the age--who has _done + something_; for such a man is scarcely likely to be a scoundrel. + Above all, darling, accept my warning against _one_ man: _do not + marry Harcourt Lowther_. + + “All the privileges that you have enjoyed during your bondage + you shall retain in your freedom. Before sailing, I shall make + my will, in which you will be left residuary legatee, and + recipient of the bulk of my fortune. While I live, your income + will be large enough to support the style in which you have + lived during the past year; and there will be a wide margin left + for the indulgence of every impulse of your generous heart. I + shall place full directions as to the management of my fortune + in the hands of my solicitors, Messrs. Kursdale and Scardon; and + they will call on you by my direction to explain your position + immediately after receiving my instructions. You will find + yourself the mistress of the larger part of the income derived + from my late uncle’s investments and from the Cornish estate, + and you will have no further trouble than to sign your name now + and then, when the lawyers want you to do so. In the interim I + enclose a cheque for £500, so that you may not be without ready + money. Your father’s affairs are now, he tells me, in a very + easy state, and I do not leave him in troubled water. He may + consider you his creditor for the interest of the thirty + thousand sunk in his business; and I don’t suppose he will find + you a very importunate one. + + “And now good-bye indeed. I leave you with all confidence in + your noble heart, your high principles. You are too good and + pure to be otherwise than happy. Far away on the Pampas, lying + under canvas, with the long silvery trail of the moonlight on + the grey expanse beyond my tent, the whisper of faint winds + among the long grasses sounding in my ears, I shall think of + you, and see you happy in the old English garden at Twickenham, + loitering on the terrace by your father’s side. In that + trackless loneliness, fever-parched perhaps, and far away from + the chance of water, I shall think of the blue English river, + but _never_ think of it without seeing your image standing by + the tide, your bright face reflected in the glassy stream. Oh, + Maude, I have loved you so dearly, so fondly! and now that it + comes to saying good-bye, it seems almost as difficult to tear + myself from this lifeless sheet of paper, as it would be to take + my lips away from yours in a last long kiss. My pet, my darling, + God bless you, and good-bye! Think of me sometimes; but never + with pain. Some midnight, when you are waltzing in a crowded + ball-room, with a brazen band braying in your ears, and the hum + of a hundred voices round about you, think that in some savage + wilderness a man is kneeling under God’s blue sky, praying for + you as few people are prayed for on this earth; think sometimes, + if a special peace comes down upon you, like the cool shadow we + have watched drop slowly upon the river when the sun was down, + think, darling, that I am saying, ‘God keep and guard her safely + through the night! God fill her heart with peace and gladness, + whether she sleeps or wakes!’ + + “And so, my own dear wife, for the first and last time in my + life, I sign myself your true and loyal husband, + + “FRANCIS TREDETHLYN.” + + +Julia had fluttered out of the room and into the little conservatory, +where there were always faded leaves to be snipped off, or bird-cages to +be replenished with fresh water. Miss Desmond, in her darkest mood, was +too much a lady to sit by and stare while Maude possessed herself of the +contents of her husband’s letter. She lingered among the twittering +canary-birds and sprawling ferns so long as she considered that delicacy +demanded she should be absent, and then she strolled back to the +breakfast-table with a look of supreme unconsciousness. But she gave a +little scream as she glanced across the table at Mrs. Tredethlyn, and +flew to the bell. Maude had finished her letter, which lay in scattered +sheets at her feet, and she had fallen back upon the sofa-pillows in a +dead faint. + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + + + + CHAPTER XXXVII. + + ELEANOR DROPS IN UPON ROSAMOND. + + +It is strange what virtues we are apt to discover in the thing we have +lost. After recovering from her fainting-fit, Maude Tredethlyn wept as +bitterly for the loss of her husband as if he had been the first choice +of her maiden heart. A young lady told Mr. de Quincey that, being on the +point of drowning, she saw in one instant her whole life exhibited +before her in its minutest details, like a vast picture;--and so the +young wife, reading her husband’s solemn farewell, beheld in a moment +the picture of her courtship and married life, and saw how good he had +been to her. Yes, in that one moment a thousand instances--such trifling +instances, some of them--of his goodness and devotion, his enduring +love, his patient self-abnegation, flashed upon her, and her heart smote +her with a bitter anguish as she perceived her own unworthiness. + +“I had no right to take his love as I take the love of my dogs,” she +thought; “giving him nothing in return for his devotion.” At first, as +she read her husband’s epistle, she smiled at his talk of leaving her, +and thought how easy a thing it would be to lay her hand upon his +shoulder and draw him down to his old place at her feet. She forgot all +about the cottage at Petersham when she thought this. And then, as she +read farther and farther, she recognized the solemn meaning of the +letter, and felt that it was indeed a farewell. Then a sudden mist came +between her and the page; all the machinery in London seemed buzzing and +booming in her ears; and she fell back amongst the downy cushion, whiter +than the pure ground of the rosebud chintz which Harcourt Lowther had +selected for the upholstery of her nest. + +She recovered very quickly under the influence of half a bottle of +toilet-vinegar; and then there were more confidences to be poured into +Julia’s ear, when the maid, who was so sympathetic, and so ravenously +eager to know why her mistress had fainted, was fairly out of the room. + +Maude read Julia little bits of the letter, leaving off every now and +then to demand pathetically _what_ she was to do. + +“He surely c-c-couldn’t write like that, Julia, if he were what Harcourt +Lowther says he is,” sobbed Mrs. Tredethlyn. “He says I spoke to him +coldly and deliberately. Oh, if he could only know what a passion I was +in! There must be some horrible mistake; and if there is, what a wretch +I must have seemed to him last night! Julia, advise me! give me some +help! My husband must not go to America. There is a whole week for me to +act in. What am I to do?” + +“How _can_ I advise you?” asked Julia. “I am so entirely in the +dark--and you too. If Mr. Tredethlyn had given you _any_ explanation of +his presence at that strange house, domiciled so familiarly with that +strange woman, you might accept it--if you could--and believe him. But +he does not even attempt to explain or to justify his conduct. He passes +it over in a manner which, I must confess, seems very ominous. To me, +Maude, his silence is a tacit confession of his guilt.” + +Poor Maude turned the leaves of her husband’s letter, and looked +wistfully at the blotted pages. If she could have only found some brief +explanation of that Petersham business anywhere--in a postscript--a +parenthesis! But there was none; and Mrs. Tredethlyn put the epistle +into her pocket, and looked at Julia with a very rueful countenance. +Unluckily, she forgot that she had brought no specific charge against +her husband, but had only attacked him in that vaguely denunciatory +manner which is so essentially feminine. + +“What a child she is!” thought Miss Desmond, as she watched her friend’s +tear-blotted face and quivering lip. “If _I_ had a pair of high-stepping +ponies to drive in the Park, and a couple of grooms to sit behind me, I +would demand no explanation of my husband’s absences, though he were to +stay away from me for ten years at a stretch.” + +But it was the very reverse of this convenient code of morality to which +Julia gave utterance presently, when she spoke to Maude. + +“You ask me for my advice,” she said. “If I am to give it frankly, I +must own that in your place I would not touch Mr. Tredethlyn’s hand in +friendship until he had accounted fully and conclusively for his +presence in that garden yesterday. I would permit no reservations on the +part of my husband; and I should be inclined to think that a secret kept +from me was only another name for a wrong done to me.” + +Maude was silent for some minutes, wiping the tears from her face, and +trying to escape from the demonstrative sympathy of a Skye terrier, who +had been frantic at the sight of his mistress’s distress; and then she +exclaimed, with sudden energy that almost startled Miss Desmond,-- + +“Yes, I will take your advice, Julia; and Francis _shall_ explain +himself--as--as I’m sure he can.” + +This was a challenge which Julia was too wise to take up; for she saw +that the wind had set violently in Francis Tredethlyn’s favour since +Maude’s perusal of his letter. + +“I will insist upon an explanation from my husband; but before seeing +him I will do what I should have done yesterday. I will go to that +cottage at Petersham, and _see_ the lady who was sitting in the garden +with Francis yesterday afternoon. It is my right as a wife to know my +husband’s friends.” + +“You will see the--person,” exclaimed Julia, on the tips of her lips, as +the French say. + +“I will.” + +“Well, perhaps, after all, it is not a bad plan,” answered Miss Desmond, +after a pause. “And if you _do_ see that person, I dare say you will +hear something unpleasant,” she thought: “it is only fair there should +be some counterbalance to your grooms and ponies, even beyond Pickford’s +vans, and the sharp corner in Dean Street, Park Lane.” + +“Julia, you will go with me?” asked Maude, putting down her Skye +terrier. “No, Floss, not to-day. Oh, I wonder whether _you_ were ever +married, and had this sort of thing to go through!--You’ll go to +Petersham with me, won’t you, Julia dear?” + +“Of course I will,” answered Miss Desmond promptly; “it is a part of my +_métier_. But how do you mean to go?” + +“Oh, we’ll drive.” + +“Your ponies?” asked Julia, spitefully. + +The “steppers” were a late acquisition. Maude’s childish cry of rapture +at the sight of the Countess of Zarborough’s equipage had sent Francis +off to Tattersall’s to bid for a pair of black ponies that Harcourt +Lowther and his set had pronounced “clippers.” You see an ignorant man’s +love is such a vulgar passion that it will express itself in this sordid +way. + +“Oh, Julia,” cried Maude, “how _could_ you? As if I would drive those +frivolous ponies with a frivolous parasol fastened to my whip, and those +two listening grooms behind me, when my heart is almost broken by +Frank’s conduct.” + +“Then you will go in the barouche?” + +“Yes, and I can leave the carriage some distance from the house,” Maude +answered, with her hand upon the bell; “and we’ll go at once, Julia +dear,--if you’re sure you’ve finished breakfast,” added Mrs. Tredethlyn, +looking piteously at the cup of stagnant chocolate and unbroken roll, +which bore witness to her own incapacity to eat or drink. + +Of course Julia declared that she had breakfasted--as completely as a +companion had any right to breakfast, she inferred by her manner; so the +two ladies adjourned to their apartments. Mrs. Tredethlyn found her maid +in her dressing-room, oppressed by such tender anxieties with regard to +the adjustment of Maude’s bonnet and shawl, that she was not to be +shaken off till her mistress stepped into the barouche, and even then +contrived to be the medium of communication with the coachman, to the +setting aside of a stolid Jeames, who was so utterly weary of life in +general as not even to be often interested in other people’s business. + +The confidante in white muslin is apt to have a hard time of it when +Tilburina’s affairs go badly; but Julia endured her burden with sublime +patience. Maude, bewailing the inconstancy of her husband one moment, +and lauding his devotion in the next, might now and then degenerate into +an inconsistent bore; but, at the worst, she was more endurable than +Maude insolently happy,--a radiant floating creature, all lace flounces +and gauzy sleeves, like one of Mr. Buckner’s portraits. Julia enacted +her part of confidante very creditably during the drive from Stuccoville +to Petersham, and submitted graciously to be left in the carriage, in a +shady curve of the winding road, with the Skye terriers and the last new +novel to keep her company, while Mrs. Tredethlyn went alone to face her +rival. + +Perhaps Maude’s heart sank just a little with something akin to fear, as +she tripped along the dusty road in dainty high-heeled boots and +flounced petticoats, whose embroideries flickered to and fro in shadowy +arabesques upon the sunlit ground. She was not at all strong-minded. +Imagine Waller’s Sacharissa stepping out of her coach in Eastchepe, with +a negro page behind her, and one of the Duchess of Portsmouth’s +favourite spaniels nestling in the perfumed lining of her muff, bent +upon a visit to a money-lender; or Pope’s Belinda alighting from her +sedan to attend a meeting of creditors. Imagine anything that is +incongruous, or absurd, or impossible, and it will be scarcely more out +of keeping than this picture of Maude Tredethlyn going alone to meet her +rival, under the shelter of a point-lace parasol. And yet this injured +young wife was as sincerely miserable as if she had worn sackcloth and +ashes, or the sombre draperies which Miss Bateman has made so familiar +to us in her impersonation of the jilted Leah. + +Mrs. Tredethlyn went straight to the cottage with the old-fashioned iron +gate and the ivy-bordered wall. A womanly instinct guided her, as by a +kind of inspiration, to the spot where she had seen her husband so much +at home with a nameless and unknown creature. An air of prim +respectability pervaded the place, which Maude inspected as she waited +for admission, and peered inquisitively through the iron scroll-work. +There were none of the rose-coloured curtains and china flower-stands, +the yelping lap-dogs and twittering birds, which Mrs. Tredethlyn had +been taught to associate with those inhabitants of an outer world, in +whom she perceived only overdone imitations of herself. Everything here +had a prim countrified prettiness of its own; and looking across the +smooth lawn, Maude saw a slender girlish figure in a cotton dress +bending over a flower-bed, while a little boy stood by with a tiny +watering-pot, whose contents he dribbled industriously over his own +toes. + +Maude’s summons was responded to by an elderly woman in black. She was +very grim and stern, as people who dote upon small children usually are; +and she was no other than the eminently respectable person at Chelsea, +who wore rusty bombazine in mourning for the better days which lay far +back in some remote period beyond the memory of her oldest acquaintance. +This person carried Maude’s card to the lady in the cotton dress, and +then swooped down upon the little boy with the watering-pot, and carried +him away struggling. + +Maude, still without the citadel, watched the girlish face as it bent +over her card. She expected astonishment, confusion, defiance,--anything +except what she saw, which was a half-pleased smile, a look of +hesitation, and then a little glance towards the gate, and a cry of +remonstrance to the elderly person now invisible. + +“Oh, Mrs. Clinnock, how could you leave that lady outside? The key! ah, +I see it’s in the gate.” Maude’s fancied rival had crossed the little +lawn by this time, and Rosamond was only separated from Eleanor by the +iron scroll-work. “Dear Mrs. Tredethlyn, how very rude you must think my +nurse! But so many people have called, out of mere curiosity I am sure, +and I am so afraid of strangers--Francis knows that--for he knows how +often he has begged me to see you; and it was only yesterday that I gave +way, and said he might tell you all about me. But I didn’t think you +would come so soon,” said Rosamond, with sudden tears welling up to her +innocent brown eyes. She had opened the gate and admitted Maude while +she talked, and the two women were now standing face to face. + +Mrs. Tredethlyn’s mystification was depicted upon her countenance, which +at first expressed only her complete bewilderment; then a chilling +expression came over her face, a scornful smile curved her lip, and she +looked at her rival with her head poised as haughtily as ever Eleanor’s +could have been when she offered Lord Clifford’s daughter that agreeable +choice between the bowl and the dagger. + +“Oh, I see,” she thought; “this person is trying to disarm my suspicions +by her cool impertinence.” + +“It was so kind of you to come,” murmured Rosamond, timidly. She was +beginning to feel rather afraid of this haughty lady, who made no +response to her warm greeting. “I did not think that I should see you so +soon.” + +“No, I dare say not,” answered Mrs. Tredethlyn; “I should scarcely +imagine that you expected to see me at all.” + +Rosamond, otherwise Susan, clasped her hands and flushed crimson to the +roots of her hair. + +“Ah, then, you too are unkind, like my father,” she cried piteously. +“You do not believe what Francis told you.” + +Maude was almost too indignant to remark that piteous accent. It was not +a gentle creature in distress that she saw. Jealousy looks through a +medium that distorts the simplest objects into evil and threatening +shapes. Mrs. Tredethlyn imagined that she beheld a shameless +adventuress, who sought to disarm her justifiable suspicions by social +histrionics. + +“By what right do you call my husband by his Christian name?” she asked, +indignantly. + +“By what right!” stammered Susan, alarmed by the angry tones in which +the question had been asked. “What else should I call him? I have called +him Francis all my life, except when we were children, and then I called +him Frank. Oh, he has been so good to me, Mrs. Tredethlyn! and he knows +that the marriage was a real one. Oh, pray, pray don’t look so coldly at +me! don’t doubt my word and his. I am as true and pure a wife as you +are, though I have no husband’s arm to lean upon, though even the name +my husband gave me may be a false one.” + +Maude stared at the earnest face in new bewilderment. Not even jealousy +could distort the expression of that face into anything but innocence. + +“What does it all mean?” she cried at last; “who and what are you?” + +“Susan Turner, Oliver Tredethlyn’s daughter and Francis Tredethlyn’s +cousin,” answered Susan, considerably puzzled in her turn; “who else +could you suppose me to be, Mrs. Tredethlyn? Surely Francis told you all +about me, or you could never have known where to find me.” + +“No, he told me nothing,” exclaimed Maude; and then she pounced suddenly +upon poor astonished Susy, and kissed her as she had never in all her +life kissed any one before. + +“Oh, you dear!” she cried; “oh, you darling! To think that you should be +only his cousin after all, when I thought that--when I was wicked enough +to think----” + +Mrs. Tredethlyn did not say what she had thought, but bestowed another +shower of kisses upon Susan. + +“You pet!” she exclaimed; “and to think that I should never guess you +were his cousin; and that he should never tell me, the silly fellow! And +he let me go on at him too last night as if he had committed all sorts +of crimes, and did not even deny them. And you are like him too. Yes, +I’m sure you are; there’s an expression about the eyes. Yes, there +really is. Oh, how dearly I shall love you! I remember Francis speaking +of you once; but he was very reserved upon the subject, and I did not +like to question him. And so you really are his uncle Oliver’s daughter! +then we are cousins, you know, dear; almost sisters--and I never had a +sister--or even a friend who was _quite_ like a sister,” added Maude, +with a remorseful recollection of Miss Desmond waiting in the carriage. + +She could have run on for an hour at a stretch, in her delight at the +discovery that her husband was not a villain. The two women walked up +and down the lawn together, while Susan related all her sad little +history, and received Maude’s tender assurances of sympathy and love. + +Mrs. Tredethlyn was told how good her husband had been to his friendless +cousin; and was pleased to dwell fondly on the story of Frank’s +kindness, his selection of that pretty house, his purchase of the +furniture, and, above all, his goodness to the little boy. + +Maude wanted Susan to go straight home with her in the carriage; but the +Cornish girl clung to her sheltered home, and the iron gate that +screened her from intrusive strangers. + +“I am not used to the people amongst whom you live,” she said; “it is +very kind of you to wish to take me--but I could never be happy amongst +strangers; and Robert and I are _so_ happy here.” + +“And I came to break in upon your happiness like a horrible jealous +fury,” cried Maude; “but you see good has come out of evil; for now we +have met, we shall love each other dearly always, shan’t we, Susan? Call +me Maude, please. And oh, my dear Susan, I have all sorts of troubles +still to go through; for Frank was so offended by what I said last +night, that he has written me a dreadful letter, in which he says he +means to sail for America directly. But of course he won’t. He never +could leave me like that, could he, dear? And when I leave you, I shall +drive straight home; and if he hasn’t been home, I shall go on to his +solicitors, Messrs. Something and Something, Gray’s Inn,--I shall know +their names when I see them in the Directory,--and of course they’ll +know his address wherever he is; and I shall go to him, and ask him to +forgive me for having behaved so badly, and to-morrow he and I will come +together, Susan. And now kiss me once more, dear, and _au revoir_; for I +have a friend waiting for me in the carriage a little way off; and if +her book doesn’t happen to be interesting, I’m afraid she’ll be cross, +for I am sure I must have been an unconscionable time.” + +There was a little embrace, and then Susan opened the gate and Maude +tripped away. The vulgar gravel seemed like empyreal air under her +high-heeled boots this time; so changed were her feelings since she had +discovered how deeply she had wronged her husband by the shapeless +jealousies that Harcourt Lowther had inspired in her breast. + +Julia looked with astonishment at her friend’s altered countenance as +Maude apologized for the length of her absence, while the _blasé_ +footman let down the steps; she was still more astonished when the +carriage drove townwards, and Maude gushed into French, to the +discomfiture of the footman, who had a habit of looking behind him for +imaginary vehicles when his mistress’s conversation happened to interest +him. + +In French, Maude informed Julia that the mythic rival had melted into a +“little cousin,” who was “all that there is of the most charming,” “an +all young girl,” “a candid angel,” whom Mrs. Tredethlyn was ready to +take to her heart forthwith. Julia found it a great deal harder to +sympathize with Maude’s happiness than with her misery. + +But the happiness did not last very long; for on inquiry at Stuccoville, +Maude found that her husband had not been home; and on penetrating +Holborn-wards to Gray’s Inn, to the disgust of the languid footman, she +met with a second disappointment in the offices of Messrs. Kursdale and +Scardon, who had heard nothing of the absent Mr. Tredethlyn. After this +Maude drove homewards with a very sad countenance, and was glad to +shrink from even Julia’s sympathy, and to hide herself in her own rooms, +where she paced disconsolately to and fro, listening for the crunching +wheels, and banging door of a hansom cab, and stopping every now and +then to look hopelessly out into the monotonous street. + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + + + + CHAPTER XXXVIII. + + GONE. + + +All through the dreary day, and far into the still more dreary night, +Maude Tredethlyn waited and listened for her husband’s coming. She could +not believe that he would hold to the purpose so earnestly expressed in +his letter. His resolution had no doubt been fixed as the Monument +itself while he wrote, for he had written immediately after his wife’s +unjustifiable denunciation of him; but surely long before the time came +for action Francis Tredethlyn’s purpose would waver, and the faithful +slave would come back to his place at the feet of his mistress. In any +case he would surely seek some explanation of Maude’s anger. + +“He never could be so cruel as to leave me because of a few foolish +words,” thought Mrs. Tredethlyn; “he could not be so unjust as not to +give me the opportunity of explaining myself.” + +But on reading Francis Tredethlyn’s letter for the third or fourth time, +Maude discovered how complete the estrangement was that had divided her +from her husband. The indignant reproaches inspired by unreasoning +jealousy had been received by Francis as the deliberate utterance of a +contemptuous dislike that had reached a point at which it could no +longer be hidden under the mask of fashionable indifference. Mrs. +Tredethlyn perceived, as she read that mournful letter, that, in her +conduct of the previous night, her husband had only seen the miserable +climax of his married life. He beheld, as he fancied, his wife’s silent +scorn transformed all at once into passionate reproach; and the proud +spirit which breathes in all simple natures had asserted itself in the +farewell letter which Maude read through a mist of tears. + +“He thinks I married him for his money, and that I have disliked and +despised him,” she thought sadly. “Ah, if he could know how often I have +reproached myself for being unworthy of his devotion,--if he could know +how my heart has sunk day by day as I have seen the breach grow wider +between us! I fancied that I had lost his love, and yet this letter is +full of the old devotion.” + +Maude awoke from the brief morning slumber that generally succeeds a +sleepless night to a second day of suspense. She did not talk to Julia +of her troubles now. They were growing too serious for feminine +discussion or friendly sympathy. Mrs. Tredethlyn shut herself in her own +rooms, and would see no one. She pleaded a headache, and the plea was no +empty excuse; for when her all-absorbing anxieties permitted her to +remember the existence of her head, she knew that it ached with a dull +heavy pain which all the eau-de-Cologne in her dressing-case could not +assuage. She roamed hopelessly to and fro between her bedroom and +dressing-room, and failed most utterly in her attempt to hide her +distress from the omniscient eye of her maid. + +The second day passed, and there was no Francis. In the evening Maude +despatched a messenger to Mr. Kursdale with a note of inquiry about +Francis: had his solicitors heard or seen anything of him; and so on. +The messenger was to wait an answer. But as old-established solicitors +do not usually reside in Gray’s Inn, the messenger found only darkness +and stout oaken doors when he obeyed his mistress’s behest. Maude wrote +another letter that evening, addressed to Harcourt Lowther, and +containing only these few lines, hurriedly written and with all the +important words underlined: + + + “DEAR MR. LOWTHER,--Have you seen my husband since the day + before yesterday? He _left home_ on Tuesday night, and I have + _not seen him since_. I am _terribly_ anxious about him. I have + _been to Petersham_, and have _seen the lady_. We were _quite + wrong_ about her, and I am _ashamed_ of myself for having been + _so foolish_. She is a _near relation_ of Frank’s; and his + conduct to her has been _most noble_. Pray find him + _immediately_, if possible, and show him this letter. + + “Yours sincerely, + + “M.T. + + “_Thursday night._” + + +A pleasant letter this for Harcourt Lowther to receive the next day, as +he lay helpless on the lodging-house sofa, with his head and face sadly +dilapidated by the effects of his fall under a shower of broken +wine-glasses and cruets. + +He groaned aloud as he read Maude’s missive. + +“Is there any possibility of comprehending a woman’s tactics?” he +muttered. “She writes as if this boor were an idolized husband. Is it +all hypocrisy--or what? So the bubble of jealousy has burst, and the +young person at the Petersham cottage _is_ a cousin, after all; and +Francis has kicked up his heels; and I lie here as miserably bruised and +battered as if I had just been beaten in a fight for the championship, +at the very time when I most want to be up and astir.” + +Yes, Mr. Lowther was a prisoner. He had been seriously shaken by the +scuffle with Francis, and had been in the doctor’s hands since the +unpleasant termination of his supper-party. But this was not the worst. +It was the disfigurement of his handsome face which Harcourt took most +deeply to heart. A black eye or a scarred forehead will keep a man as +close a captive as a warrant of committal to the Tower. At the very +moment when the sudden entanglement of his web threatened to render all +past efforts useless, when the schemer had most need of his dexterity, +Harcourt Lowther found himself an unpresentable object, and knew that he +must spend dreary weeks of seclusion before he dared emerge into the +world once more, and take up the disordered threads which he still hoped +to weave into a harmonious network. Imagine Paris, with all his plans +laid for the abduction of Helen, brought suddenly to a standstill by a +score of vulgar cuts and bruises, the sight of any one of which might +have restored the lady to a sense of her duty. Harcourt Lowther, with +his face bandaged, felt himself a contemptible creature, a modern Samson +without the glorious remnant of a Samson’s strength. For the first time +in his life the fine gentleman discovered how much he depended on his +handsome face, and what a lost wretch he would be without it. + +He felt a savage rage against Roderick, who strolled in and out of the +room half the morning, dressing and breakfasting by instalments, +smoking, and writing letters, and crackling the daily papers, as it +seemed to Harcourt, more persistently than newspapers were ever crackled +before. _He_ was free to sally forth after his careful toilet, while his +junior lay on that rickety sofa as furious in his wretched helplessness +as some wounded hyena. Roderick had volunteered to call upon Francis at +the Covent Garden hotel, to demand a reckoning for the scuffle at the +supper-party; but Harcourt declined the friendly offer. + +“As soon as I can leave the house, I will go to him myself,” he said. +“The fellow’s talk about going abroad is all bombast, I dare say. He +will be sneaking back to his wife’s apron-string now that I am laid by +the heels.” + +When Harcourt had read Maude’s letter, he tossed it over to his brother. + +“Do you know how to reckon that up?” he asked. “What does it mean?” + +Mr. Lowther the elder had by no means a high estimate of the female +character. In his idea of the sex, the woman who was not a profound +simpleton was only something very much worse than a simpleton. + +“The fellow has _not_ gone back to his wife; so that’s one point in your +favour, at any rate,” said Roderick, after reading Maude’s epistle. “I +dare say he’ll go altogether to the bad now, at a railroad pace, and +finish himself off before the year is out. The lady’s anxious inquiries +about her husband may be read in more ways than one. This letter _may_ +be only intended to put _you_ _au courant_ as to the state of affairs. +Unluckily, that ugly scar about your nose will prevent your calling on +Mrs. Tredethlyn for some weeks. But I don’t mind being brotherly for +once in a way; and I’ll look in at the Stuccoville mansion this +afternoon, if you like. Virtue is sometimes rewarded, and there is just +a chance that I may see the lovely Grunderson, and improve the +occasion.” + +Harcourt, after a little deliberation, consented to this arrangement. +His confidence in the honour of his brother was about as small as it +could be; but as the interests of the two Antipholi were in this +instance not antagonistic, he could scarcely have anything to fear from +Roderick’s intervention. + +“You can tell Mrs. Tredethlyn that I am seriously ill,” he said, when +his brother was leaving him. “If you could drop a hint or two about a +rapid decline--a secret sorrow undermining a constitution that was +originally delicate--the sword and the scabbard, and so on, it would +only be friendly to do so. Of course I have seen nothing of Francis +since Tuesday, which is perfectly true; only you need say nothing of +Tuesday night--curse him!” muttered Harcourt, with a lively recollection +of the wounds inflicted by a broken vinegar-cruet, and the pernicious +effects of the adulterated vinegar, as exhibited in his inflamed eyes. +“You can take care to let Mrs. Tredethlyn understand that her husband +has returned to his old haunts and his old companions; and that any +anxiety she may be so absurd as to feel about him is wasted upon a +person who would be the first to laugh at her folly.” + +“Dear boy, I have not served my country for nothing,” answered the +diplomatist. “You may trust in my discretion and in my power to make the +best of an opportunity. The people who plan a conversation beforehand +never are able to talk according to their programme. The other party +doesn’t give the necessary cues. The man who trusts to the inspiration +of the moment never makes a failure. The divine _afflatus_ is always +right; but you can’t pump the sacred wind into a man with vulgar +bellows. It comes, dear boy; and it will come to your humble servant, I +have no doubt. I shall dine at the St. James’s, and I’ve two or three +places to go to in the evening; so I leave you to your reflections and +the goulard-water. Adieu!” + +The diplomatist had no opportunity of serving his brother by any +sentimental hints about secret sorrows and mortal illness; for Maude +sent Julia Desmond to receive her visitor, and to hear anything he might +have to say about Francis. Mrs. Tredethlyn would see no one and would go +nowhere. Julia had been busy all the morning writing excuses to people +whose invitations had been accepted. Miss Grunderson had called, and had +sent up pencilled supplications upon the backs of cards, imploring her +dear Mrs. Tredethlyn to see her, if only for a few minutes; but Maude +had been inexorable. There are sorrows which friendship is powerless to +soothe; and in the time of such sorrow noisy friendship is above all +things intolerable. Maude shuddered as she thought of Miss Grunderson’s +warm paws and schoolgirl endearments; so Rosa was sent away +disconsolate. + +Roderick Lowther would have been very well contented to loiter in Mrs. +Tredethlyn’s morning-room talking to Julia, whose half-haughty, +half-defiant manner had a wonderful fascination for him; but that young +lady gave him no opportunity of dawdling. She had seen his tactics with +regard to Miss Grunderson, and took care to let him know that she +understood his diplomacy; but she listened to all his insinuations +against Francis, and he saw her eyes brighten as he uttered them. + +“She will convey my hints to Mrs. Tredethlyn,” thought the diplomatist, +“and they won’t lose by her interpretation; so I’ve done that fellow a +service, and wasted my morning, since Miss Grunderson is not to be +seen.” + +But on leaving Julia Mr. Lowther decided on speculating a call upon +Rosa’s papa. There was always the chance of seeing the young lady; and +as Mrs. Tredethlyn’s house could no longer afford a platform for the +carrying out of Roderick’s matrimonial schemes, it was absolutely +necessary that he should try a bold stroke and advance matters. He had +ascertained Rosa’s address, and had no difficulty in finding the +Grunderson mansion, which was close at hand. He was not very certain +about the number of the house, but selected it unhesitatingly from its +fellows for the vivid greenness of its blinds, and the intense newness +which pervaded every object that was visible through unshrouded windows +of plate-glass. The Grunderson mansion bared its inner splendours +unflinchingly to the eyes of the passer-by; and Mr. Grunderson’s +dining-room, superb in pollard oak, and with the Grunderson arms blazing +on the scarlet morocco backs of the chairs, revealed itself to the very +core of its heart to every butterman’s apprentice or butcher’s boy who +brought his wares to the area-gate. Thus Roderick Lowther found it very +difficult not to make his perception of Mr. Grunderson, seated at the +head of his table with a substantial luncheon before him, unpleasantly +palpable while he rang the visitors’ bell. Fortune favoured the +diplomatist, for the hospitable millionaire insisted on his being +ushered into the dining-room; very much to the discomfiture of Rosa, who +was partaking of an unfashionable plate of underdone beef from the +sirloin before her papa, and who had a big bottle containing some yellow +compound in the way of pickle, and ornamented by a blazing label, on her +right hand, and an imperial pint of Guinness’s stout on her left. The +stout and the embarrassment produced by Mr. Lowther’s appearance +combined to dye Rosa’s cheeks with a very vivid carnation; but the +diplomatist would have been less than a diplomatist if he had not +appeared supremely unconscious of the two bottles and the underdone +beef. + +“Sit ye down, Mr. Lowther, and make yourself at home,” exclaimed the +hospitable Mr. Grunderson. “A knife and fork for this gentleman, Thomas; +and look sharp about it. You’ll find this here as fine a bit of beef as +ever was cut from an Aberdeen bullock; and there ain’t no bullocks equal +to a Scotch short-horn, go where you will. Let me give you a slice out +of the alderman’s walk, which was a name my father always gave to the +undercut; and a very good father he was too, though he never thought of +my sittin’ down to table upon the very spot where he built hisself a +tool-house forty year ago, when you couldn’t have got six pound an acre +per annum for any ground about here. There’s a pigeon-pie at the other +end of the table, and there’s some of your foreign kickshaws,--cutlets a +la curlpapers, and mutton-chops a la smashed potato, _I_ call ’em; for +I’m not a young man, Mr. Lowther, and I can’t remember your _soubeeses_, +and your _maintenongs_, and your _jardineers_, and so on, as my daughter +can. We don’t have the men to wait at lunch, for my daughter says it +isn’t manners; and I’m very glad it ain’t, for I can’t say I enjoy my +meals when I have to take ’em with a couple of fellows shoving +vegetable-dishes and sauce-boats at me every two minutes, and never +shoving the right ones; for I’m blest if I ever knew ’em yet to shove me +the cucumber before I’d half finished my salmon, though they do call +themselves experienced servants. Howsomedever, if we must dine ally +Rousse, and wrap our mutton-chops in greasy paper and call ’em +maintennong, we must, and there’s an end of it; but I don’t mind +confessing to you, Mr. Lowther, that this is the time I make _my_ +dinner, and it’s no use frowning at me, Rosa, for I don’t care who knows +it.” + +Mr. Lowther, whose luncheon generally consisted of a glass of +seltzer-and-sherry and one small biscuit, escaped the infliction of one +of Mr. Grunderson’s plates of beef by a judicious manœuvre, and helped +himself to a morsel of pigeon-pie. But before doing so, he allowed his +eyes to wander about the walls in contemplation of some impossible +conglomerations of brown rockery and soapsud sky, which Mr. Grunderson +called his Sallivaters; and thus gave Rosa time to dismiss her bottles +and her plate, and to recover from her embarrassment. + +After this everything went very smoothly. Mr. Grunderson expanded under +the influence of bottled stout and Madeira, and was very loquacious; but +sinking presently into a rather stertorous slumber, which he called +forty winks, and which generally lasted about an hour and a half, the +_ci-devant_ market-gardener left Rosa and Roderick to their own +resources. On this Mr. Lowther would have departed, but the candid Rosa +begged him to remain. She had kept up a visiting acquaintance with most +of her old school-fellows, and as she was perpetually making new +acquaintances, she was positively besieged by callers, and had a +tea-drinking institution, which she called a kettle-drum, almost every +afternoon. The idea of exhibiting the elegant diplomatist to her +feminine circle was eminently delightful to Miss Grunderson; and as soon +as her papa had begun to snore with undisguised vehemence, she conducted +Roderick to the drawing-room, where there were as many albums, and +perfume-caskets, and ormolu workboxes, and enamelled book-slides, and +_solitaire_ boards, as would have stocked one of Messrs. Parkins and +Gotto’s show-rooms, and where a grand piano, scattered with all the +easiest polkas in the gaudiest covers, testified to Rosa’s taste for +music. + +Miss Grunderson’s kettle-drum visitors began to assemble almost +immediately; and before long Rosa’s drawing-room was full of young +ladies in overpowering bonnets and transparent cloaks of every +imaginable tissue. The male element was very much in the minority at +Miss Grunderson’s gatherings, and was chiefly represented by speechless +younger brothers, who came in sulky submission to overbearing sisters, +and who lounged in uncomfortable attitudes upon Rosa’s most fragile +chairs, spilt their tea upon the velvet table-covers, rarely moved +without knocking something down, and left dingy thumb-marks in all +Rosa’s albums. Amongst such as these Roderick shone like a star of the +first magnitude, and Miss Grunderson exhibited him with unspeakable +pride. The kettle-drum lasted for two mortal hours, and Mr. Lowther was +one of the last to depart, bored to death, as he told his brother +afterwards. + +“But a fellow must bring his mind to go through a good deal if he wants +to marry a millionaire’s only daughter in these hard times,” thought the +_attaché_, despondently, as he went yawning to bed. “If my lovely Rosa +does become Mrs. Lowther, she will have to renounce her _penchant_ for +bad French and violent pink dresses; but she may cram her drawing-room +with acquaintance of _quasi_-gentility, and drink tea all day, so far as +I shall be concerned in the matter.” + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + + + + CHAPTER XXXIX. + + TOO LATE. + + +A long miserable week wore itself slowly out after the night in which +Francis Tredethlyn had turned his back upon a house which he had never +been allowed to find a home. Through all the week there were no tidings +of Maude’s departed husband; but when the week was over, a formal letter +from Mr. Kursdale acquainted her with Mr. Tredethlyn’s arrangements for +her welfare, and with the fact that he had embarked the day before on +board the steam-vessel _Kingfisher_, bound for Buenos Ayres. The news +inflicted as great a shock upon Maude as if her husband’s letter +announcing his intended departure had never been written. To the last +she had believed, that when the time for action came, his resolution +would fail him all at once, and he would hurry back to her, faithful and +devoted as in the earliest days of their brief married life, when he had +nursed her Skye terriers, and sat patiently for an hour at a stretch in +a haberdasher’s shop while she selected ribands and laces. She had +written him a penitent letter, and had enclosed it to Mr. Kursdale, +entreating that gentleman to deliver it to his client whenever he saw +him. She had not thought it possible that, even if Francis persisted in +his intention of leaving England, he would leave without an interview +with his solicitor. But when Maude drove post-haste to Gray’s Inn, and +presented herself in the lawyer’s office, she found that there had been +no interview. Francis had communicated with his solicitor by letter +only, and his clear and concise epistle bore the date of the very day on +which he was to start for Plymouth, whence the _Kingfisher_ was to sail. + +The letter thus dated had arrived at the lawyer’s office after business +hours; and when Mr. Kursdale opened it next morning, there was little +doubt that the _Kingfisher_ was outward bound with Francis Tredethlyn on +board her. Maude made a confidant of her husband’s solicitor. A family +lawyer is a kind of father confessor in the matter of secrets, and has +generally outlived the capacity of surprise as completely as those +imperturbable disciples of St. Ignatius Loyola who are irreverently +entitled “crows.” The despondent wife told Mr. Kursdale that Francis had +left home in consequence of a slight misunderstanding--(was any conjugal +quarrel ever yet described by the belligerents as anything _more_ than a +slight misunderstanding?)--and she implored him to assist her in +bringing about her husband’s speedy return. + +“But do you think he has really sailed?” she asked; “do you think he can +have been so cruel as to leave England without even giving me the +opportunity of imploring him to remain?” + +Mr. Kursdale shook his head gravely. + +“There is nothing in his letter to me which indicates indifference to +your wishes,” he said; “it is only a business letter; but in a practical +way it is the strongest evidence of a husband’s devotion that ever came +to my knowledge. We lawyers are a matter-of-fact set of men, and we are +apt to form our conclusions in a matter-of-fact way. What other people +would treat as an affair of sentiment, we look at as an affair of +figures; and I must say, Mrs. Tredethlyn, that gauged by that standard, +your husband comes out nobly.” + +“But I want him to come back to me,” Maude exclaimed, simply; “I don’t +want to be rich--or to live like a woman of fashion. He wrongs me most +cruelly when he thinks that I married him for his money. I married him +because he was good to my father. Do you think I could accept the income +which that letter places at my disposal, knowing that my husband has +left his native country because of me? Tell me what I am to do, Mr. +Kursdale. I know that Mr. Tredethlyn is unhappy, and that a few words +from me would set all right. What am I to do?” + +“We must try to send him the few words, my dear Mrs. Tredethlyn,” +answered the lawyer, cheerfully. “South America is not so very far off +nowadays; and you know that even in Alexander Pope’s time a sigh might +be wafted from Indus to the Pole, by means of ocean postage. We’ll get +your letter delivered to Mr. Tredethlyn as quickly as the improvements +of modern science will allow, you may depend upon it. Shall I send the +letter you enclosed to me the other day? Perhaps you would like to add +something to it--another postscript, eh? Ladies have such a _penchant_ +for postscripts,” said the lawyer, lapsing into mild facetiousness, +which he imagined to be of an eminently consolatory character. There are +people who believe that a feeble joke is an infallible specific for a +deeply rooted grief. + +“I will send a clerk off to Plymouth by the next train,” said Mr. +Kursdale, with his hand upon the spring of a little bell beside him. He +spoke as coolly as if he had been talking of sending a clerk over the +way. “If by any chance the _Kingfisher_ has not sailed when the young +man arrives, your husband will have the letter before dark. If the +_Kingfisher_ has sailed, the letter must be sent on by the next mail. At +the worst, Mr. Tredethlyn may be back in six or seven weeks.” + +In six or seven weeks! It seemed a very long time; but on receiving the +lawyer’s letter announcing her husband’s departure, Maude had fancied +that he was lost to her for ever. With what wonderful intelligence we +can perceive the value of anything we have lost! In your daily walks, O +modest collector of household treasures! you will see a little bit of +china, a picture, an apostle spoon, a quaint old volume in a +shop-window,--and, intending to look in and bargain for it some day when +you have leisure, you will pass it a hundred times, indifferent as to +its merits, half uncertain whether it is worth buying; but you discover +some day that it is gone, and then in a moment the doubtful shepherdess +becomes the rarest old Chelsea, the dirty-looking little bit of +landscape an undeniable Crome, the battered silver spoon of +unquestionable antiquity, the quaintly bound book a choice Elzevir. The +thing is lost; and we regret it for all that it might have been, as well +as for all that it was, and there are no bounds to the extravagance we +would commit to regain the chance of possessing it. + +It was something after this fashion, perhaps, that Mrs. Tredethlyn +regretted her husband, as she drove home disconsolately after her +interview with the lawyer, to await the result of his clerk’s journey. +She would have gone herself to Plymouth if she could have done any more +than the clerk; but she had a dim belief that if there was infallibility +anywhere on earth, it was to be found in the office of an +old-established solicitor, and she thought that Mr. Kursdale’s +accredited agent could not fail to effect some good. + +Her disappointment was very bitter the next day when she received a note +from the solicitor, informing her that the _Kingfisher_ had sailed +twelve hours before the clerk arrived at Plymouth. + + +After this Maude could only await the result of her letter. Six or seven +weeks seemed such a weary time as she looked forward to it; and it might +be as long as that, or even longer, before any tidings from Francis +could reach her. She went to her father, to pour her sorrows into his +ear; but though he received her very affectionately, she could see that +he blamed her severely for the folly which had driven Francis Tredethlyn +from his home. + +She would have gone to stay at the Cedars during this dreary period; but +she had a nervous dread of not being on the spot to receive any possible +communication from her husband, so she remained amid the grand +hotel-like splendour of the Stuccoville mansion; though her neighbours +were daily departing for distant British watering-places, or on the +first stage of continental wanderings, to toil amidst Alpine glaciers, +or to lounge at German gaming-tables. + +Mrs. Tredethlyn was very glad to see London growing empty; but before +her acquaintance departed for their autumnal relaxations they had ample +time to discuss her husband’s disappearance and her own sudden +withdrawal from society. The fact of that slight misunderstanding, which +Maude had been obliged to confess to the solicitor, had become patent to +all Stuccoville through the agency of loquacious maids and languid +footmen, and had assumed every possible and impossible complexion in +feminine debates. So Maude stood listlessly at one of the windows in her +spacious bedchamber, sheltered by the voluminous curtains and the +flowers in the balcony, and looked despondently at happy family parties +driving away to railway stations with cargoes of parasols and umbrellas, +and deliciously fluffy carriage-rugs and foot-muffs. Other people always +seem so happy. The lives of those smiling Stuccovillians might not have +been unclouded in their serenity; but Maude watched them very sadly, +remembering how she and her husband might have been starting in the +twilight for the Dover mail, like that merry young couple from the house +over the way. + +Surely she must have loved him very dearly, or she scarcely could have +regretted him so much. If she had been questioned as to the real state +of her feelings on this point, she could not have given any very clear +reply to the question. She only knew that her husband had been very good +to her, and that she had repaid his devotion with neglect and +indifference. Maude had been a spoiled child, it must be remembered, and +there may have been something of a spoiled child’s useless remorse in +her penitence; but she was very penitent. All her life for the last year +had been crowded with proofs of Francis Tredethlyn’s unbounded love; +and, looking back upon them, she could not remember one instance in +which she had been sufficiently grateful for his affection. + +“Those silly young men at the Cedars used to make a fool of me with +their empty flatteries,” she thought, remorsefully; “and I treated Frank +as I had learned to treat them, accepting his generous devotion as +indifferently as I had accepted their unmeaning compliments.” + +There was one thing that Maude did not remember as she looked back at +her past life, and that was Harcourt Lowther’s influence. She did not +know how much of her indifference to her husband had been engendered by +the subtle sarcasms of her jilted lover; nor did she know how the +schemer had practised upon her girlish love of society, in order to +widen the gulf that divided her from Francis Tredethlyn. Her errors as a +wife had chiefly arisen from want of leisure. She had found no time to +adapt herself to her husband’s tastes--no time to elevate and refine him +by association--no time to give him any return for those practical +proofs of his affection in the way of jewels and carriages, +thorough-bred steppers, and hundred-guinea shawls, which he was +constantly lavishing upon her; and, worse than all, she had found no +time to inquire how he passed his life, or in what circles he sought the +happiness she had never tried to provide for him in his home. + +“I will ask him to complete the purchase of the Berkshire estate when he +comes back to me,” she thought; “and then we shall be able to begin a +new life away from this perpetual whirlpool of society; and I can drive +to the meet when Frank hunts, and even take an interest in the stables. +Country stables are so pretty; and it’s so nice to see a favourite horse +looking over the door of his loose-box, with a big tabby cat sitting on +the wooden ledge beside him, and honeysuckle blowing about his head. But +one’s horses might as well be at the North Pole for all one can see of +them in a London mews, where there are always dreadful men in +shirt-sleeves, and cross-looking women hanging up clothes,” mused Mrs. +Tredethlyn, with a vivid recollection of the prospect which all the +ground glass in her fernery could not quite shut out. + +While she was thinking very penitently of the past, and weaving pleasant +schemes for the future; while she was perpetually counting the days +which must elapse before Francis returned to her, always supposing that +the remorseful words of her letter found their way straight to his +heart, as she implicitly believed they would; while she was praying +daily and nightly for his safe preservation in tempest and danger, Maude +Tredethlyn took up the “Times” newspaper one morning as she loitered +listlessly over a lonely breakfast-table, and the first paragraph that +met her eyes was the announcement of the _Kingfisher’s_ total +destruction by fire, and the entire loss of passengers and crew. + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + + + + CHAPTER XL. + + AN IGNOMINIOUS FAILURE. + + +Harcourt Lowther had his copy of the great journal on the day when Maude +read that horrible paragraph. Roderick had called at Stuccoville during +Mrs. Tredethlyn’s seclusion, and had heard of the Cornishman’s +departure, and the name of the vessel he had gone in, from Julia +Desmond. The schemer turned deadly pale when his brother read him the +brief account of one of those terrible catastrophes which come upon +mortal travellers now and then, to teach them how frail is man’s hold of +that wondrous power by which modern science has learnt to rule the +elements. The coolest villain who ever planned a comrade’s destruction +must surely suffer one sharp pang of remorse when he knows that the hand +which has so often clasped his own is really cold. To Harcourt Lowther +the wealthy Cornishman had never been anything worse than an impediment. +He was gone now; there was little doubt of that. Midway between her +starting place and her destination, the _Kingfisher_, sailing gaily on a +placid sea, had succumbed to a worse foe than tempest or hurricane, and +all on board her had perished. A fragment of charred timber, branded +with the name of the steamer, had been picked up by a homeward-bound +vessel; and in the calm moonlit night the blazing ship had been seen by +distant voyagers a lurid speck upon the silvery horizon. By these and +many other tokens the fact of the catastrophe had been made known; and +in a hundred British households there was mourning for lost friends and +kinsmen. + +After the first shock that came upon him with these sudden tidings, +Harcourt Lowther gave a long sigh of relief. + +“It was the fellow’s own doing,” he muttered. “If he had not made a +quarrel with me, this would never have happened. And he’s gone! Poor +lad! He was not such a bad fellow, after all. Better to die that way +than of delirium tremens,” added Mr. Lowther, with a furtive glance +towards a tall smoke-coloured bottle which was apt to adorn his table +very often nowadays. “And so my Maude is free--at last! Do you know, +Roderick, it seems to me as if I had lived twenty years or so since my +return from Van Diemen’s Land? and now that the luck turns, and the +winning colour comes up for the first time, I feel as if I had almost +outlived the power to care much about it. Roderick!” cried the invalid, +with a sharp suddenness that startled his brother, “did Folson tell you +there was any serious damage done to my head by that ugly fall the other +night? I know he has talked to you about me. I heard you and him +muttering together yesterday, when I was lying half asleep in the next +room.” + +Mr. Folson was the medical man who had attended Harcourt Lowther after +the scuffle with Francis, and who had brought all his science to bear +for the preservation of the handsome face without which his patient +would have been so small a creature. + +“Folson said very little about the damage you got in the row,” the +_attaché_ answered, very coolly; “but he told me you must drop your +liberal consumption of that sort of thing, or you’d find yourself very +speedily in Queer Street.” Mr. Lowther pointed to the smoke-coloured +bottle as he thus addressed himself to his invalid brother. “While you +were teaching that fellow Tredethlyn to drink himself to death, you +ought to have learnt how to keep yourself alive by not drinking,” he +said presently. “However, I don’t want to say anything unpleasant, but +you really must cut your very intimate acquaintance with the +brandy-bottle, if you want to improve your opportunity, now that Mrs. +Tredethlyn is a rich widow. If you don’t look sharp I shall throw over +the Grunderson, and go in against you.” + +Harcourt smiled superciliously. + +“I am not afraid of _you_, for more reasons than one,” he said. “Maude +is a curious girl. I sometimes fancy my own chance is not quite so good +as it once was. Goethe says that a man wins in his age the prize he +sighs for in his youth. Perhaps, when I am a pottering old fellow of +seventy, I shall have a great fortune and a handsome wife; only the +capability of caring much for either will be gone. How fond we were of +toffee at Harrow! But all the toffee that was ever manufactured in +Doncaster during the Sellenger week wouldn’t give me a ray of pleasure +now. Madame de Maintenon began to enjoy herself when she was eighty; +rather late in the day, wasn’t it? My soul is weary, Roderick; and now +the chance _has_ come, I’m not the man I was. Perhaps, after all, the +simple truth of the matter is that I am suffering from an attack of blue +devils, engendered of solitary confinement in this detestable crib. I’ll +tell you what I’ll do, old fellow. As the ugly scar across my forehead +has dwindled into a romantic-looking badge of bygone prowess, and the +variegated hues of my countenance are rapidly fading into an interesting +pallor, I’ll get you to send me round a hack from Parsons’s, and I’ll +take a spin in the Park; there won’t be many people about at this time +of year, and the fresh air will blow my old self back again, I dare say. +I’ll meet you at the Metropolitan afterwards, if you like,” added +Harcourt, naming an adjacent restaurant at which the brothers had been +wont to dine occasionally. + +“No, thanks. I dine at the Grundersons’.” + +“_Déjà!_ We go fast, my friend!” + +“If your military experience had extended farther than the +superintendence of penitent burglars, you might have known that where +the assailing party is weak, a fortress must be taken quickly, or not at +all. I declared myself to Rosa this morning. She is delighted with the +idea of flourishing at foreign courts in _écrasant_ pink dresses. How I +shall tone her down, poor child! and what a hard time we shall both have +of it before the scent of the market-garden ceases to cling to her +still! I am to speak to papa Grunderson this evening, over his wine. He +consumes the best part of a bottle of old port every night, and finishes +off at a neighbouring tavern with the gin-and-water of his early +manhood. Rosa tells me that he is an indulgent old party, and that I +shall not have any difficulty in bringing him to book.” + +“Then you really think of marrying?” asked Harcourt, thoughtfully. + +“Really think of marrying? Of course I do. What else should I think of +whereby to improve my fortunes? And Rosa will not be so _very_ +disagreeable after a good deal of toning down.” + +“I thought perhaps you might have some lingering regard for----that +other person.” + +The diplomatist turned upon his brother with a frown. + +“I thought I told you that I didn’t care to discuss that subject,” he +said, haughtily. “Drop it, if you please. There are plenty of +disagreeable things in _your_ life, I dare say, that I might remember, +if I wanted to make myself obnoxious. However, as you have been existing +upon a limited supply of oxygen for the last six weeks, I suppose you’re +privileged to be cantankerous. I’ll look in at the stables and send you +the hack; and if I find you here when I come home to dress, I dare say +we shall hit it better. _A bientôt!_” + + +Harcourt Lowther had his gallop in the Park, and punished the +livery-stable hack rather severely. It was dusk before he went back to +town, and he left the Park by the Prince’s Gate, and rode slowly through +the gorgeous dismality of Stuccoville. He walked his horse down the +street in which Francis Tredethlyn’s household had been established. +Glimmering lights burned feebly in the windows on the second floor, but +the gaslit dining-room was blank and empty. + +Looking up at the dimly lighted windows, Harcourt Lowther wondered if +Maude Tredethlyn’s heart, set free all at once from its mercenary +bondage, had fluttered back to the lover of her youth. He was strangely +tormented by conflicting fancies, and found it hard to strike the +balance between his low estimate of woman’s constancy and his very high +opinion of his own merits. + +“She loved me once,” he thought, “and my hold upon her ought to be +stronger now than ever it was. I have quires of schoolgirl letters +filled with protestations of eternal constancy and reliance in a bright +future waiting for us somewhere in the cloudy distance of our lives. And +now the happy future is ours, my Maude; you are free and you are rich; +so we can afford to build the castle of our dreams, and live in it very +respectably.” + +Riding slowly homeward through the crowded streets, Mr. Lowther found it +very difficult to shut out of his mind the picture of a burning ship, +and the image of the man whom he had called his friend, prominent amidst +a wild night-scene of death and horror. + +“I’m glad I had nothing to do with the fellow’s going in that vessel,” +thought Mr. Lowther, as he tried to shake off the uncomfortable feeling +which oppressed him. “_I_ had no hand in his mad freak of bolting off to +Buenos Ayres; so I needn’t worry myself about the business. If he had +lived to get there safely, I dare say he’d have been finished off by +fever or small-pox.” + +Nearly a week elapsed before Harcourt Lowther approached the woman who +had once been his plighted wife, and who was now free to renew her +broken vows as speedily as common decency would allow her to accept the +addresses of a second husband. The schemer wanted to be sure of his +triumph. One interview with Maude, one look in her face, would be enough +to tell him whether his hold on her was undiminished, whether his future +happiness was secure. Assured of this, he would be contented to stand +apart until the usages of society would permit him to take his place by +her side as her acknowledged suitor. But he was eager to be quite sure +of his position. A nervous restlessness that was foreign to his +temperament had come upon him since the tidings of the _Kingfisher’s_ +destruction had reached his ears; and he could not endure anything like +uncertainty or suspense. + +He called at Stuccoville one morning. He was told that Mrs. Tredethlyn +would see no one; but that Miss Desmond was at home, and would receive +him, if he pleased. + +He did please; and was ushered into the morning-room, where Julia sat +writing at a little table near the window. There was a door opening from +Mrs. Tredethlyn’s dressing-room into this morning-room; and as Harcourt +entered at one door, a pale wan creature in black appeared at the other. + +It was Maude--so changed that a sudden pang shot through the schemer’s +heart as he looked at her; a sudden pang that must have been remorse, +but which gave place immediately to a feeling of jealous anger. + +Was the loss of her husband so deep a sorrow that it should change her +like this? + +She had seen the visitor, and was drawing back, when he ran to her and +seized her hand. + +“Maude!” he cried, passionately, “I must speak to you. Surely you are +not going to treat _me_ like a stranger.” + +She tried to take her hand from his, but he held it firmly and drew her +into the room; as he did so, Julia, who had risen on his entrance, went +quietly out at the other door. Maude and Harcourt were alone. + +“What can you have to say to me?” asked Mrs. Tredethlyn. “It is cruel of +you to force yourself upon me at such a time as this. I have grief +enough and trouble enough without being tortured by the sight of you.” + +Harcourt Lowther looked at her aghast. + +“Tortured by the sight of me!” he repeated. + +“Yes,” answered Maude, indignantly. “It was your fault that my husband +left me. It was you who planted base suspicions in my mind when there +was no need for suspicion. If I had gone back to the cottage at +Petersham--as I would have done, but for you--I should have discovered +the folly of my jealous fancies--inspired by you--yes, by you alone. For +when I saw Francis and his cousin, my first impulse was to call him by +his name. It was your exclamation that frightened me; it was your manner +that filled me with absurd alarm. Why did you poison my mind against the +best husband a woman ever had? How could you be so base as to repay his +trusting friendship with such malicious treachery?” + +“Because I loved you, Mrs. Tredethlyn, and I believed that your husband +had wronged you. Was _I_ likely to be a very lenient judge of his +conduct towards you, when I had loved you so passionately, and had been +jilted by you so cruelly for him? You questioned me, and I spoke. Can +you forget or deny that I spoke reluctantly? You hang your head, Mrs. +Tredethlyn; ah, I see that you remember.” + +“Yes,” answered Maude, piteously, as she sank into a chair; “you are +right. I made you speak. It was my own jealous folly from first to last. +If others doubted and suspected, I ought to have trusted him. What a +pitiful return I made him for so much devotion, when I could not even +give him my confidence!” She was silent for some moments, lost in +thought. It was of her husband, and not of the man standing before her, +that she was thinking. Harcourt Lowther could see that. + +She looked up at him presently, as if she suddenly remembered his +presence. “Have you anything more to say to me?” she asked, coldly. + +“Have I anything more to say! Are you mad, Mrs. Tredethlyn, that you ask +me such a question? I have outraged propriety perhaps in coming to see +you so soon, you will tell me; but a man who has suffered as much as I +have at the hands of the woman he loves is not very likely to be held +back by ceremonial constraints when the hour comes in which he may claim +atonement for the wrong that has been done him. I respect your natural +sorrow for the terrible fate of your husband; but I should despise you +if you were so false-hearted a prude as to affect forgetfulness of what +is due to me.” + +Maude looked at him as she had never looked at him before. Wonder, +indignation, disgust--all mingled in the expression of her countenance. +He had woven his network to ensnare a frivolous shallow-hearted girl, +and behold, on the completion of the schemer’s web, a woman arose in the +strength of her truth and purity, and shook herself free from the toils +as easily as if they had been so much gossamer. “There is something due +from me to you?” she asked, haughtily. “What is it?” + +“The fulfilment of your broken promise. I have waited, Maude, and waited +patiently. Another man would have revenged himself on your inconstancy +by proving to you that he too could be inconstant. Hopeless but patient, +I have given you a disinterested devotion which is without a parallel in +the history of man’s sacrifice for the woman of his choice. Now that you +are free, I ask some atonement for the past, some reward for my +patience. Tell me that the past is not quite forgotten--that the tender +protestations which consoled me in my miserable exile were not utterly +meaningless and false. Why do you look at me like that? Have I been the +dupe of a coquette from first to last, Mrs. Tredethlyn, and does your +husband’s death only leave you free to jilt me again? Have I been fooled +to the top of my bent by a woman who has never loved me?” + +“No, Mr. Lowther,” Maude answered, very quietly; “I did love you once. I +look back now, and wonder at myself as I remember how dearly. But my +love died--a very sudden death.” + +“When you discovered the advantages of a wealthy marriage for the +penniless daughter of a commercial defaulter,” cried Harcourt. + +“No; my love for you was a girlish fancy, if you like; though Heaven +only knows how deeply I felt for you in your exile--how willing I would +have been to resign my imaginary wealth for love of you, if you had +asked me to do so. But you never did ask that. You did not want the wife +without the fortune. When you came home and found me engaged to another +man--about to sacrifice myself in a mercenary marriage, as you +thought--there was yet time to have exacted the fulfilment of my +promise. I loved you then, Harcourt Lowther. A word from you, and I +would have told Francis Tredethlyn the truth, and demanded my release. +He was far too generous to have withheld it. But in doing that I should +have offended my father, and I should have come to you penniless. You +did not want me on those terms, Harcourt. The honest indignation of a +disinterested lover never found an utterance on your lips. You were +contented to assume the position of friend and confidant to your +unconscious rival; and it is only since I have been left alone to think +of my past life, that I have fully understood the dishonour involved in +keeping our broken engagement a secret from my husband. I loved you when +you came back to England, Harcourt. It was a hard battle which duty had +to fight against the unaltered affection of my girlhood. I prayed to God +night and day for strength to do my duty, and to keep my promise to the +man who had a claim upon me, which you have never known. I prayed for +power to blot your image from my mind; and my prayer was heard. My first +foolish love died on my wedding-day, Harcourt, when you stood by to see +me married to Francis Tredethlyn. From that hour to this you have been +no more to me than any other man who has paid me the conventional +attentions which I imagined I had a right to receive. If I had ever seen +more than this in your conduct, Mr. Lowther, you would have found me +quite capable of asserting my position.” + +“The world has chosen to see a good deal more than conventional courtesy +in my attendance upon you, Mrs. Tredethlyn,” answered Harcourt. He had +lost the game. Utterly defeated in the moment of his expected triumph, +he was careless as to the rest of his play. How can the whist-player, +who knows that he is beaten, be expected to pay any great attention to +the order in which he plays the two or three insignificant cards that he +holds at the close of the rubber? “People have been good enough to make +us the subject of considerable discussion, Mrs. Tredethlyn,” continued +Harcourt. “A man is apt to hear these things, though they rarely reach +the ears of the lady most interested in hearing them. The people amongst +whom we live have made up their minds about us, I know, and will be +considerably astonished if you throw me over now that you are free to +reward the patient devotion which, has endured so much in the hope of +this hour.” + +He saw Maude’s look of unutterable scorn; a look which revealed her to +him in a new and higher light, and inspired him with a more passionate +love than he had ever felt for her yet--and at his worst he had loved +her. + +“Maude,” he cried, in a sudden access of mingled rage and despair, “why +do you goad me to say these things? I know how detestable I seem to you. +And yet, as there is a heaven above me, I have loved you truly from +first to last. Pity me if, while I prayed for no better fate than to +face the enemy’s guns on an Indian battle-field, I was a coward in +social life and dared not brave genteel poverty even for your sake. Pity +me if I shrank from thrusting myself between you and a wealthy marriage. +I had been poor all my life; and I knew what you have never learnt--the +horrors of a gentleman’s poverty. I have smiled at your girlish talk of +pretty cottages and tiny suburban gardens; an elegant little +drawing-room, in which you and I might spend the winter evenings +together with our books and music. The poor gentleman’s cottage is never +pretty; the poor gentleman’s drawing-room is never elegant. His wife’s +tastes may be ever so simple, his own aspirations may be ever so pure; +but poverty countenances no taste, permits no aspiration. His wife is +fond of music, perhaps. Heaven help her! she cannot be sure of an hour +in which her piano may not be seized by the broker. She delights in +flowers; but the nosegays she arranges so gaily to-day may entail a writ +for the florist’s account to-morrow. You would have thought me a model +of all that is noble and disinterested if I had exposed you to such +miseries as these: you think me a scoundrel because I was not selfish +enough to say to you, ‘Reject Francis Tredethlyn and a life of elegant +ease, and accept my devotion and an existence of penury and trouble.’” + +“And you ask me now to fulfil my broken promise? Have you inherited a +fortune? or how is it that your ideas upon matrimony have altered?” + +The schemer flushed crimson to the roots of his hair, and then grew +deadly pale. For the life of him he could not answer that question. He +could not say, “_My_ position is unchanged, but _you_ are rich. Give me +your fortune and the heart I did not choose to claim when it was +unaccompanied by fortune.” + +“Had we not better wish each other good morning, Mr. Lowther?” Maude +said, after a little pause. “Your visit is ill-timed and most unwelcome. +Your presence reminds me of a cruel wrong done to a noble friend, a +devoted husband, whose worth I have learned only too late; whom I have +loved unconsciously, only to discover the depth of my affection when its +object is lost to me for ever.” + +“You loved your husband!” cried Harcourt, with a cynical laugh; “you +seem determined to astonish me to-day. You loved your husband?” + +“Yes--dearly and truly; and love his memory better than ever I loved +you. I have learned to think, since I have been released from your +influence; for it was your influence that regulated my life as well as +my husband’s; it was your influence that kept us asunder, and plunged +both of us into a whirlpool of dissipation. I have had time to think +during the long miserable days and nights in which I have watched for +the coming of him who was never to return to me; and if I had not +discovered the shallowness of your love before my marriage, I should +have made that discovery since. You are base enough to tell me that the +world has linked my name with yours. I can afford to despise a world in +which I have never found real happiness, and in which I no longer wish +to hold a place. I shall go back to my father’s house, and my life will +be one long atonement for the past. I tell you this, Mr. Lowther, in +order that you may understand that we must be strangers to each other +henceforward.” + +She laid her hand upon the bell as she spoke. Harcourt Lowther stood for +some moments looking at her. A strange compound of passionate admiration +and vengeful fury flamed in his eyes. + +“I have sometimes wondered at the madmen who murder the women they have +loved; but God help you, Maude Tredethlyn, if I had a loaded pistol in +my pocket to-day!” + +He folded his arms, locking them together with a convulsive suddenness, +as if he could only thus restrain the impulse by which he would have +struck her down where she stood defying him; and then he turned, and +slowly left the room. + +He had left his hired horse in the quiet street, in charge of a boy; but +the boy’s back was turned when his employer left the house, and Harcourt +Lowther drove back to town in a hansom. It was only when his brother +reminded him of the horse, that he remembered how he had gone to +Stuccoville; and sent a man to recover the missing steed. After that he +left the noisy regions of the Strand, and wandered across one of the +bridges out to some dismal waste ground in the neighbourhood of +Battersea; a remote and forgotten tract, that was almost as lonely as an +African desert: there he laid himself down amongst the rubbish of a +deserted brickfield, and cried like a child. + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + + + + CHAPTER XLI. + + SUSAN’S GOOD NEWS. + + +Maude Tredethlyn sat alone in her spacious chamber: oh, so spacious, so +splendid, so dreary, so ghastly, with a tall carved walnut-wood bedstead +that was like one of the tombs in Père la Chaise, only not so lively, +and with long panels of looking-glass shimmering ghost-like in dark +walnut-wood wardrobes and armoires, and _duchesse_ dressing-tables. She +might have endured her troubles better, perhaps, if her room had been +furnished with white and gold rather than so much funereal walnut-wood +and ghastly looking-glass. She sat alone, thinking of the husband whom +she had lost, and whose worth she had only discovered when it was too +late. She would accept sympathy from no one. Julia wrote her letters, +and saw people who must be seen, and was very good; but the wayward +heart shrank away from her in its sudden desolation. She had loved +him--she had loved him--and had been ashamed to confess her real +feelings either to herself or to the people who had smiled upon a +mercenary marriage as if it was the most natural thing under heaven; but +who would have lifted their eyebrows in scornful surprise had they known +that she could care for a person whose boyhood had been spent in a +humble old homestead among the Cornish moorlands. Gliding gracefully +through her frivolous life, tolerably happy in a shallow kind of way, +with more shopping, and driving, and riding, and calling, and +kettle-drumming, and dinner-giving, and horticultural-fête attending, +always to be done than it was in the power of any one woman to do, +except by a perpetual scramble, she had found no time to consider her +position, no time to be aware how entirely even her most frivolous +pleasures depended on the faithful minister whom no influence could +entirely divide from her. + +Amongst the papers she had looked over on the library shelves and +tables, where the dust lay thick, she had sometimes found a sheet of +perfumed note-paper, and a list of items in her own writing--commissions +she had given Francis to execute, troublesome ones sometimes, involving +loss of time, and patient inquiry amongst West-end emporiums--orders for +new books, drawing materials, ferns, music, all the frivolities of her +life. She remembered with a cruel pang of remorse how faithfully the +smallest details had been remembered, how patiently the most tiresome +researches had been conducted, and how very lightly all this untiring +service had been accepted. Circumstances which she had been too +thoughtless to notice at the time flashed back upon her now, and she +remembered how Harcourt Lowther had stepped between her and her husband +even in this commonplace communion--how Francis had been pushed aside, +politely taught to remember what an ignorant and awkward creature he was +when compared to the fine gentleman. + +As she sat alone, upon the evening after her interview with Harcourt +Lowther, her husband’s image was more vividly present with her than it +had been at any moment since his departure. The bright honest face--the +faithful loving face--shone out upon her in the ghastly twilight of her +ghastly chamber, and she thought how pleasant it would have been to be +sitting opposite her husband in the firelight glow of a cosy parlour, +far away from splendid loneliness and carved walnut-wood. She thought of +him with her face hidden in her hands, and her aching head lying wearily +on the sofa-cushion. She thought of him until a nervous restlessness +came upon her, and she sprang suddenly to her feet, unable to bear the +oppression of that dreary room, or any room in that dreary house. + +“I must go away somewhere, or I shall die,” she thought; “this place +seems haunted. I will go to papa. He is very good to me, but he does not +understand what I feel about Francis. People speak so lightly of him, +and seem to have known him so little. If I could talk to any one who +really loved him; if I could talk to any one who knew his goodness as I +ought to have known it--as I do know it, now that he is dead!” + +She crossed the room hurriedly, and rang the bell. She had told her maid +to bring lights only when she rang for them, much to the dismay of that +sympathetic young person, who believed that candle-light and company +were eminently consolatory in all earthly sorrows. When the candles +came, Maude went to a writing-table, and wrote a few hasty lines to her +husband’s simple little cousin. She had written to Susan once before, to +tell her of Francis Tredethlyn’s departure; but the two women had not +seen each other since their first meeting. + + + “MY DEAR SUSAN,--There is terrible news of your cousin: it may + have reached you before this, perhaps. Will you come to me? I am + so utterly miserable! and I believe that you are the only person + in the world who can understand my sorrow. Come, dear, I implore + you. Ever your affectionate + + “MAUDE.” + + +Mrs. Tredethlyn was a great deal too impatient to wait for any such +commonplace means of communication as the post. She summoned her maid, +and entrusted her letter to that faithful attendant, with directions +that a groom should mount one of the Park hacks immediately, and ride +straight to Petersham with the missive. The maid obeyed; and the groom, +who had made an engagement to go half-price to a West-end theatre, +departed, grumbling sulkily, and determined on punishing the Park hack +for the unwarrantable caprice of his mistress. + +Maude slept soundly that night for the first time since the tidings of +the _Kingfisher’s_ fate had reached her, and woke in the morning to see +Susan looking down at her with a smile upon her face. + +“Ah, you don’t know,” cried Maude, waking out of a happy dream to an +instant consciousness of her sorrow,--“you don’t know what has happened: +you haven’t heard?” + +“Of what, dear?” Susan asked, gently, as Maude started up from amongst +her pillows feverish and excited. + +“The loss of the _Kingfisher_--the fire--the dreadful fire! Oh, Susan, +you _cannot_ have heard!” + +Mrs. Tredethlyn said this, because the girl’s face, though it was grave +and sad, expressed none of that acute anguish which Susan ought to have +felt for her cousin’s untimely fate. She only looked at Maude with a +wondering earnestness. + +“Yes, it was very dreadful,” she said. “Mrs. Clinnock read it in the +paper, and told me. I am so sorry for all the sufferers. But oh, Maude, +dear cousin, how grateful we ought to be for the accident that saved +Francis from such a fate! If he had gone by that vessel, dear----” + +She stopped suddenly, for Maude looked at her with an unnatural stare, +and then fell back unconscious. + + +No, he had not perished with the ill-fated passengers of the +_Kingfisher_. Lives as noble, friends as dear, husbands and fathers, +brothers and sons, worth and genius, some tribute from all that is +brightest upon earth,--had gone down to the deep waters; but Francis +Tredethlyn had not made a part in the mighty sacrifice. When Maude +recovered from the deadly faintness that had come upon her, Susan showed +her a letter which she had received from her cousin,--a letter that had +been written in an hotel at Plymouth _after_ the sailing of the +_Kingfisher_. It was a kind kinsmanlike letter, stating the arrangements +which the writer had made for the comfort and welfare of his cousin and +her child; and, in conclusion, Francis told Susan that he had reached +Plymouth too late to leave by the _Kingfisher_, a steamer which he had +intended to go by, and in which he had taken his berth. Thus left with +his time on his hands for some days, he had resolved on going to have a +look at the old neighbourhood once more. + +“It might seem a foolish fancy to many people, but I don’t think it will +to you, Susy,” he wrote. “I want to gather a handful of daisies from my +mother’s grave before I leave the soil that holds her for ever. I want +to stand by the old hearth once more, though God knows what a pain it +will be to me to see strangers in the old home. God bless you, dear, and +good-bye! I shall not write again till I write from the New World.” + +This was the close of the letter, which Susan gave Maude to read. Her +first feeling on reading it was unbounded gratitude to the Providence +that had saved Francis Tredethlyn. Her second feeling was considerable +indignation against Francis himself. The mother of the comic song who +bewails her missing child in such pathetic numbers, and slaps him +soundly when she finds him, is not such a very impossible character. + +“It was shameful of him to let me suffer so much,” she cried, “when a +few lines from him would have made me so happy;” and then she was +grateful to Providence again, and angry with herself for having been +angry with Francis; and then she pounced upon Susan and kissed her. + +“What am I to do, darling?” she asked. “I dare say he has gone off by +some other horrible steamer. But wherever he is, I won’t stop idle in +this dreary house. I won’t trust everything to that slow solemn lawyer. +I’ll go to Cornwall myself, Susy, and find out all about my husband; how +long he stayed there, and when he left. You’ll tell me where to go; +won’t you, Susy?” + +Of course Susan was ready to give her cousin’s wife all needful +information about that forgotten corner of the earth, Landresdale. She +would have volunteered to accompany Maude to the western moors, only +there was the boy; and Susan had an idea that if she were to turn her +back upon her son for twenty-four consecutive hours, he would inevitably +be seized with measles or scarlatina in her absence. But Maude declared +she wanted no one to accompany her. + +“I suppose I must take my maid,” she said; “but I shall leave her at the +inn at Falmouth, and go alone to that queer old house on the moor, and +those queer old people Francis once told me about.” + +Julia Desmond had to endure a good deal that morning, for Maude was +radiant when she appeared with Susan at the breakfast-table. She was so +grateful to Susan for hurrying to her in the early morning. + +“Every night, when I have gone to sleep, I have thought the same thing,” +she said: “if I could only wake and find it all a dream--if I could wake +to find it only a dream! And this morning I did wake to find an angel +standing by my bed with the best news I ever heard in all my life. But I +am very sorry for those poor people who were really lost in the +_Kingfisher_,” added Maude, mournfully; she felt that there was +something almost incongruous in her own happiness when so many must be +sorrowful for the destruction of that ill-fated vessel. + +While she was making preparations for her departure, Mr. Kursdale, the +solicitor, was announced. He came radiant and red-faced to tell her the +result of inquiries which he had considered it expedient to have made at +Plymouth before taking any legal steps with regard to the supposed +demise of his respected client; and the result was that Francis had not +sailed in the _Kingfisher_; and he was very proud and happy to announce +to Mrs. Tredethlyn---- + +He would have gone on in a ponderous manner for some time longer, if +Maude had not interrupted him by the assurance that she knew all about +it. + +“You did not ascertain that my husband had left Plymouth by any other +vessel?” she asked. + +“No.” + +“Then we may hope he is still in England. I am going to Cornwall +immediately to look for him. At the worst, I shall there hear all about +him.” + +Mr. Kursdale evidently thought this very unprofessional, and suggested +the expediency of a clerk acting as Mrs. Tredethlyn’s proxy; but Maude +shook her head. + +“I will go myself,” she said. “If my husband is still in England, I will +find him. There can be no further misunderstanding between us, if once +we can meet face to face.” + +Mr. Kursdale submitted, and departed. Maude ran away to superintend her +maid’s packing of a small portmanteau, and Susan sat in the morning-room +with Julia. It had been settled that Miss Desmond should drive her back +to Petersham after luncheon. + +They were talking rather ceremoniously, when the door was suddenly +opened by an impetuous hand, and Miss Grunderson burst in upon them, +more intensely pink than usual. + +“They wanted me to go to the drawing-room, and they’d go and see if Mrs. +Tredethlyn was at home!” exclaimed Rosa. “I know what their going and +seeing is. Not at home always, and I do so want to see that poor +darling; and I’m sure there’s no one in the world more truly sorry for +her than I am; and if going into half-mourning would have been +considered a tribute of sincere respect, and not an intrusion or +uncalled for, I would have ordered a crape bonnet, trimmed with lilies +of the valley and jet beads, directly I heard of it.” + +Julia interrupted Miss Grunderson with a simple statement of the fact +which had put an end to Maude’s brief time of mourning. Rosa’s delight +was very genuine, and on being introduced to Mrs. Lesley, she expanded +as it was her wont to expand on all occasions. + +“You can’t think how glad I am!” she exclaimed; “for I assure you when I +heard of that _dreadful_ event, I felt as if it was quite hard-hearted +of me to be happy, and I have been very happy for the last week or so. +In point of fact,” added Miss Grunderson, dragging at the button of a +very tight glove in evident embarrassment, “I’m engaged to be married.” + +“Indeed!” said Julia, politely. + +“Yes. You see as par has long objected to my running after public +characters, which of course was tiresome to him,--for of all the people +to tear about to all sorts of inaccessible places, and oblige one’s +getting up unreasonably early in the morning to hear them or to see +them, public characters are the worst,--so par was really glad for me to +be seriously engaged to anybody that would keep me quiet, he said, even +if the person was not rich; so when Mr. Lowther--Mr. Roderick Lowther, +you know--proposed, par happening to be in a good temper, it was all +settled immediately.” + +“I am very glad to hear it,” answered Miss Desmond; “but I am not at all +surprised. I quite expected as much.” + +“Did you really, now? Well, upon my word, I thought at first he was +almost as grumpy as Rochester in ‘Jane Eyre;’ but when those grumpy +people do begin to pay one compliments, it is so nice. Of course, with +regard to Mario, Lord Palmerston, Sir Edwin Landseer, and Charles +Mathews, my feelings will be unchanged to my dying day. But the worship +of public characters need not interfere with the happiness of domestic +life; and as Roderick’s position in the _corps diplomatique_ will take +us abroad, his jealousy need never be aroused in the slightest degree.” + +Miss Grunderson entertained the two ladies for some time with minute +details of her own affairs, and she confessed presently that Roderick +had promised to call for her. + +“He doesn’t want to see Mrs. Tredethlyn, you know,” she said; “he was +only anxious to express to you how sorry he is, and so on--though, of +course, now he hasn’t any occasion to be sorry, thank goodness!--but you +don’t mind his coming to fetch me, do you, dear? The carriage is waiting +for me, and I’m going to take him on to the Haymarket, where we’re to +see about the resetting of some old-fashioned diamond earrings that +Roderick’s ma has sent me. They’re not nearly as handsome as my own, you +know; but, of course, I feel grateful to her for the attention. And I’m +to go down to Lowther Hall to stay before our marriage; and I’m to be +introduced to a maiden aunt of Roderick’s, from whom he has +expectations, this very afternoon--I mean I’m to be introduced to her +this very afternoon,” added Rosa. + +While she was chattering the door was opened, and a servant announced +Mr. Lowther. He came out of the bright white daylight on the staircase +into the room which was kept cool and shadowy by closed Venetian +shutters. As he looked about him, unaccustomed to the obscurity, he +heard a faint shriek, and a woman who had been sitting with her back to +the window started suddenly from her chair. + +“Robert!” she cried; “Robert, is it you?” And then she sank down again, +pale and breathless. + +“Robert!” exclaimed Miss Grunderson; “you must mistake Mr. Lowther for +some one else, Mrs. Lesley. His name is not Robert.” + +“Perhaps not,” Susan answered, sadly. “He kept his real name a secret +from the poor girl who was once proud to call herself his wife; but +whatever his name may be he is my husband nevertheless, and Providence +has brought about our meeting to-day. Oh, don’t add a falsehood to the +wrong you have done me!” she cried, appealing to Roderick Lowther, who +stood pale and confounded, with the faces of the three women all turned +towards him, and with the knowledge that those scrutinizing eyes were +upon him. “I shall claim very little of you. I only want you to give me +the name I have a right to bear; I only want you to acknowledge your +son.” + +Roderick Lowther did not reply to this appeal. After a moment’s pause he +turned to Julia: + +“Where do you pick up your acquaintance, Miss Desmond?” he said. “I +should scarcely have expected to meet this lady here.” + +“This lady is my husband’s cousin,” answered Maude, who had entered the +room while he was speaking; “and I do not know any one who has a better +right to be here. What is the matter, Susy darling?” + +Roderick Lowther’s heart was stirred faintly by the sound of that +familiar name--the name which he had whispered so often beside a grey +wintry sea, under a wintry sky, in the desolate region which had been +brightened for him by his discarded wife’s innocence and love. + +“There is nothing that can be spoken of here,” Susan answered; “I have +met some one whom I never expected to see again. I will wait till my +cousin comes back. I will say no more till then.” + +“But, good gracious me!” exclaimed Miss Grunderson, “I’m not going to be +treated in this sort of way. What does it all mean, Roderick? That lady +starts up all of a sudden, and calls you her husband, and then says +she’ll wait till her cousin comes home. I can’t be expected to wait till +her cousin comes home. I can’t take matters so coolly. With my trousseau +ordered, and all! I must and will have an explanation!” + +“You shall, Rosa; but, for mercy’s sake, hold your tongue. There is some +infernal mistake. You had better go home; never mind about the earrings +to-day. If this lady mistakes me for some one she knows, or has a claim +upon, I have no doubt I shall be able to demonstrate her mistake, if I +can talk to her for a few minutes quietly. And now let me take you to +your carriage, Rosa.” + +Miss Grunderson would have resisted such a summary way of disposing of +her and her wrongs; but Roderick Lowther was firm. He led her +down-stairs, and he put her into her carriage, and he sent her home as +coolly as if she had been a packet of dry goods consigned to his +temporary care, to be sent on to Mr. Grunderson. + +“Awkward,” he muttered, as he went back to the house; “but things always +do happen awkwardly just when a fellow fancies he’s swimming with the +tide all in his favour.” + +He looked very grave as he went to Mrs. Tredethlyn’s morning-room to +demand an interview with Susan; but he looked a great deal more grave as +he left the house after that interview and made his way back to his +brother’s lodgings. + +He found Harcourt sitting moodily by the empty fireplace, the slim +foreign bottle on the table by his side, and a cigar in his mouth. + +“What is the matter with you?” asked the younger brother, listlessly, as +he perceived the scowl upon his senior’s face. + +“There is this much the matter with me,” answered Roderick; “I trusted a +fellow to help me in a delicate business, and I’ve reason to think that +he took advantage of my confidence to get me into a dilemma that it will +take me all my life to get out of. I have seen Susan Turner to-day.” + +“Indeed!” + +“And she has told me something about the Registrar--something that I can +scarcely bring myself to believe. Do you remember what I asked you to do +for me, Harcourt?” + +“Perfectly. And I have got the letter containing your request in my +possession--such a nice letter! You tell me in it that you have fallen +over head and ears in love with an innocent little country girl, too +poor and insignificant to be your wife, too virtuous to be your +mistress. Another man might have accepted his fate, and either resigned +the lady, or made some sacrifice of his own interests and married her. +You were inclined to do neither, and you fell back upon a villanous +expedient familiar to the readers of old-fashioned novels, and known as +a mock marriage. You wrote to me about this in a half-playful tone, as +if it were the simplest thing in the world--an elegant little comedy, +out of which it would be your care, of course, to see that no harm +should arise; and so on. The carrying out of the little conspiracy would +be very easy. You suggested how it might be done. I had only to engage +some clever scapegrace to enact the Registrar; hire a parlour in some +obscure street _near_ a District Registrar’s Office--in the same street, +if practicable; the ceremony would only occupy about ten minutes, and +could be got over as quietly as the most commonplace morning call, if +the fellow engaged to personate the Registrar knew what he was about. +The dear little girl was the last person in the world to suspect +anything amiss. In short, it was the simplest possible business, and all +our dear good Harcourt had to do was to find the handy scamp who would +act the official, and get himself well up in the little professional +formula of signing and counter-signing, and so on, in some big books +that he would get for the purpose. The certificate business would have +to be finessed of course. The dear little girl would ask for no +certificate, and the dear little girl’s witnesses must be conveniently +shut up if they made their noses unpleasantly prominent.” + +“I begin to understand you,” said Roderick, with suppressed fury. “You +have sold me; and you are going to defend yourself upon high grounds, +conscientious scruples; and so on. Pray proceed. That sort of talk will +sound so well from your lips.” + +“I am not going to do anything of the kind. I am only going to remind +you that, as you never in your life did a generous thing for me, or +stepped aside from your own interest or your own pleasure by so much as +a hair’s breadth to serve me, it wasn’t very likely that I should get +myself into a legal hobble--that mock marriage would have been something +like felony, I should imagine--and inflict a cruel wrong upon an +innocent little girl to oblige you. I didn’t want to be too disobliging, +so I arranged a marriage, but it was a real and not a sham one; and you +are as tightly tied to your pretty little wife as if the business had +been transacted at St. George’s, Hanover Square, by a popular bishop, +assisted by an aristocratic uncle to the bride.” + +“You are a remorseless scoundrel!” exclaimed Mr. Lowther, coolly. “And I +am very happy to tell you that your own pretty little plans are knocked +on the head. Francis Tredethlyn did not sail in the _Kingfisher_!” + +Harcourt gave a little start of surprise; but his countenance did not +express the profound vexation and disappointment that his brother had +expected to see in it. The schemer had failed so completely, that it +mattered very little to him now what course events took. + +“Yes, Francis Tredethlyn is alive and well, I have no doubt,” resumed +Roderick. “And my little Susy turns out to be Francis Tredethlyn’s first +cousin. I have a recollection of her telling me, after our marriage, +that her real name was something outlandish, of a Cornish character; but +the name had slipped my memory completely before I met your wealthy +Cornishman.” + +“Then the likeness which I fancied I saw in that daub of a portrait and +the similarity of name were not mere coincidences, after all,” muttered +Harcourt. “And the lady at Petersham is my little sister-in-law. It’s a +pity you didn’t treat her rather better,” he added; “for Francis +Tredethlyn could afford to give her a handsome fortune, if he pleased. +It is from her father he inherits his money; and if you had declared +your marriage, and made things square with the old man, your wife need +not have been disinherited, and would have been as rich a prize as any +Miss Grunderson.” + +“Hold your tongue!” cried Roderick; “I know what I have lost as well as +you do. If you had been above-board with me, and told me that you had +sold me about the marriage, I might have acted differently. Why did you +get me into such a mess?” + +“Because I didn’t choose to be your catspaw. I have been sacrificed to +your interests all my life, and I was determined to keep my hold upon +you when I had got it.” + +“And you would have allowed me to marry Rosa Grunderson?” + +“_C’est selon!_ I _think_ I should have spoken at the last moment--and +yet it might have been very convenient to hold an awkward little secret +about one’s wealthy brother. A man must be very hard up before he +descends to that undignified mode of livelihood which the French +galley-slaves call _chantage_; but when a fellow _is_ hard up there’s no +knowing how low he may descend.” + +“You are a scoundrel!” + +“And you are--I can’t finish the sentence without sinking to slang. We +resemble each other in character as we do in person.” + +In this fashion the brothers bandied civilities for some time; but they +ended matters by dining together at the Metropolitan. Arabian traditions +as to the sanctity of bread and salt cannot hold good against the +exigencies of civilized life; and men may dine together in a friendly +way, and reserve the right of hating each other nevertheless. + +Warmed by a good dinner and a bottle of Moselle, Roderick grew hopeful +as to the future. Susan would relent from her calm determination never +to hold any communication with the husband she had loved so tenderly, by +whom she had been so cruelly abandoned. Francis might act in a handsome +manner about the fortune which ought to have been his cousin’s; and, +after all, the turn which affairs had taken might not be altogether an +unlucky one. + +“Looking at it in any way, Rosa was a nuisance,” said Mr. Lowther, as he +bedewed his moustache with the rose-water which the luxurious +Metropolitan provides for its guests; “and perhaps it’s better as it is. +We hadn’t come to close quarters about the settlements; and I dare say +if the _père_ Grunderson had been brought to the scratch, we should have +had a scuffle.” + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + + + + CHAPTER XLII. + + A PERFECT UNION. + + +Maude left Paddington by an afternoon express, and reached Exeter after +a journey that was long and wearisome even to a modern traveller, for +whom the way has been smoothed so delightfully. It was late the next +evening when she reached Falmouth, after a day in a stage-coach, and put +up at the principal hotel with her maid, who was a good deal more tired +than her mistress, as it is in the nature of maids to be. The coach that +passed through Landresdale on its way to some still more remote and +savage district left Falmouth early in the morning; and Maude left with +it, this time unattended by her maid, whose curiosity had been +considerably stimulated by the erratic nature of her mistress’s +movements, and who thought it a hard thing to be left alone to look out +of the window of the hotel sitting-room, while Mrs. Tredethlyn pursued +her mysterious journey to its mysterious close. + +How strange and new all the wild Cornish scenery seemed to Maude, as she +sat alone in the interior of the coach, which was not affected by the +sturdy agriculturists and miners who were generally the only passengers +on this route! How many conflicting hopes and fears found a place in her +mind as she looked out at the unknown country amidst which her husband’s +boyhood had been spent! Had he sailed for the New World by some later +vessel than the _Kingfisher_? Was he far away from the rustic homestead +towards which she was travelling with a faint hope of finding him at the +end of her journey?--an unreasoning hope, which she tried to shut out of +her mind in her dread of the cruel disappointment that might await her. + +The coach put her down before the Crown Inn, and she stood alone in +Landresdale High Street, with the great gates of the marquis’s enchanted +castle frowning down upon her from the top of the hill. She inquired +about a conveyance to take her on to Tredethlyn Grange; and the landlord +of the Crown ordered the immediate preparation of a lumbering old +equipage of a tub-like character, lined with washed-out chintz, which +was brought forth on rare occasions, and charged for at a prodigious +rate. While the equipage was being prepared, the landlord contemplated +his bright young visitor with evident curiosity, and would fain have +beguiled her into conversation; but Maude had no inclination to be +communicative. If she was to receive a death-blow to all her hopes, she +did not want to take it from the hands of this coarse common man. She +wanted to go straight to the Grange and learn her fate there, and there +only. The road from Landresdale to the moorland farmhouse was longer +than the by-path through the churchyard by which Francis had gone; and +the clumsy old brown horse, and the lumbering vehicle in which Maude was +seated, progressed very slowly. The way seemed intolerably long to her; +but at last she saw a grey spot against the blue sky, and made out that +the vehicle was bearing towards it by a winding track along which heavy +waggons had left the impression of their broad wheels. The grey spot +grew bigger and bigger against the horizon, until it grew at last into a +dreary-looking habitation, with quaint old gables and moss-grown stone +walls. One slender thread of smoke curled upward, white against the +clear blue atmosphere; some sheep were grazing upon the patch of ground +that had once been a garden; and the perfume of the clover blew towards +the traveller as the fly lumbered nearer to the broken gate. + +Maude looked hopelessly at the quiet house,--so little sign of +occupation, so little token of life. + +“He can’t be there,” she thought; a sudden gush of tears shutting out +the grey stone walls, the clover-field and browsing sheep. “I am too +late!” + +She brushed away her tears, drew down her veil, and alighted, telling +the driver to wait for her; whereupon the man took the bit out of his +horse’s mouth and abandoned himself to slumber, while the animal cropped +the stunted grass contentedly. Some sheep that had been lying in the +pathway skipped awkwardly away as Maude crossed the bare enclosure; and +as she approached the door, it was opened by a tall gaunt woman, who had +evidently been disturbed by the unwonted sound of wheels on the rough +moorland road. + +“Mr. Tredethlyn has been staying here, has he not?” Maude asked, +eagerly. + +“Yes, ma’am; and he’s here still. Excuse me for being a little put out +like, but you have taken me so aback. You don’t happen to be my master’s +wife, do you?” + +“Yes, yes! Oh, thank Heaven, he is still here! Let me see him at once, +please!” exclaimed Maude, trying to pass the grim-looking woman who +barred her passage. + +“Not yet! Oh, please, ma’am, not yet!” cried the woman, eagerly. “It +mightn’t be safe.” + +“Not safe! What do you mean?” + +“He has been so ill, ma’am; and the doctor’s special orders was that he +was to be kept from anything that might upset him. And he talked and +raved so about you, poor dear, when his senses were quite gone, as they +were for days together; and I’m sure nothing could upset him so much as +the sight of your coming upon him sudden. Let me see him first, and tell +him you are here. I make no doubt he’ll be overjoyed to see you; but it +mustn’t come like a shock upon him.” + +“He has been ill!” cried Maude; “dangerously ill!” + +“Yes, ma’am; very dangerously. We had two doctors with him at one time. +Brain fever it was; over-fatigue and trouble of the mind, and so on, the +doctors said. He came up here after being too late for the steamer by +which he was to have gone abroad; and he came to settle everything about +the farm and the quarries, and so on; and he worked at it night and day, +without rest nor sleep, though me and my husband told him how bad it was +for him; and everything was almost settled when he woke one morning bad +in his head, and after that got from bad to worse, until his life was +almost give up.” + +“But he is out of danger now?” + +“Yes, ma’am, thank God, quite out of danger now; but, oh, so weak; the +smallest child that ever I had to do with wasn’t weaker than my poor +master now.” + +Maude burst out crying. Until this moment she had stood, pale and +breathless, waiting to hear that she was indeed too late--that Francis +Tredethlyn had escaped the destruction of the _Kingfisher_ only to find +death waiting for him in his own home. + +“Don’t mind me,” she exclaimed, as the gaunt woman made a clumsy attempt +to comfort her; “I am crying for joy. Go and tell my husband that I am +here; but not at any hazard to him. I will be very patient. Thank God I +have found him! thank God I shall be able to fall on my knees by his +bed-side and beg his forgiveness for my neglect and ingratitude!” + +Martha Dryscoll looked wonderingly at this butterfly creature, who +talked hysterically of falling at her husband’s feet and begging +forgiveness. Francis had made no confidants in that Cornish house; and +Mrs. Dryscoll began to fear that his marriage had been a very +unfortunate affair, and that this sudden arrival of an elegantly dressed +penitent was to be the last act of a domestic tragedy. + +“If you’ll walk in there, ma’am,” Martha said, pointing to the parlour, +with a severe aspect of countenance, “I’ll go and see my master.” + +She said no more, but departed; and Maude crept into the old-fashioned +room, fearful lest the rustling of her silk dress might disturb an +invalid’s slumber. It seemed a long time that she waited, and then Mrs. +Dryscoll returned, smiling grimly this time. + +“He’ll see you directly minute,” she said; “and, oh, he does seem so +pleased, poor dear!” + +She led Maude to the top of the staircase, and then pointed to a +half-open door at the end of a dusky corridor, after which she went +down-stairs again, and Maude heard her sobbing quietly to herself until +the sound subsided in the distance. + +The young wife went on to the half-open door, and entered the room in +which her husband lay on a white-curtained bed, very pale, very wan, and +so weak that he could not raise his hand to offer it her in token of +loving reconciliation. + +She fell on her knees by the bed, and laid her cheek upon the hand that +was too feeble to be lifted. + +“Oh, forgive me!” she said; “my dear, my love, my true and cherished +husband! If you wanted to give me a lesson, you have given me a very +cruel one; but you have taught me that I cannot live without you.” + +She sat by his pillow, with his weak head encircled by her caressing +arms, and told him the story of her penitence and remorse. It was a +sweet exchange of forgiveness for the past, and tender promises for the +future. No denizens of Stuccoville kept watch from behind pink curtains; +the driver of the fly slumbered as profoundly as one of the seven +sleepers; the rustic sound of the sheep cropping the clover was the only +sound that stirred the drowsy stillness. Martha kept herself discreetly +out of the way; and the husband and wife, truly united for the first +time in their lives in that Cornish solitude, were loath to break the +spell which held them in such loving union. + +But such spells have to be broken for the common business of life. +Punctual to the appointed moment Mrs. Dryscoll appeared with her +master’s medicine; and then the lumbering fly was sent back empty to +Landresdale; and after that Mrs. Tredethlyn was banished from the sick +room, and made some faint show of taking a little of the refreshment +which had been provided for her by Martha. + +After dinner she wrote two brief notes--one to her maid at Falmouth, who +was to follow her immediately with the portmanteau; the other to Julia, +who was to be so good as to send her such luggage as would be necessary +to her in a stay of some weeks. + +After this Mrs. Tredethlyn had no more to do but to nurse her husband +through the slow stages of convalescence. It was very long before he was +strong enough to get up to a little Arcadian tea-drinking. It was very +long after that before he was able to take a few turns in the +clover-field, leaning on Maude’s arm. It was still longer before he was +well enough to think of turning his back upon Cornwall, to plunge into +busy commonplace life again. + +If he could have been an invalid for the rest of his days, he would have +resigned himself uncomplainingly to his fate; for what period of his +chequered existence had been so sweet as this, in which he and Maude +were all in all to each other?--this perpetual _tête-à-tête_, unbroken +by the intrusion of morning callers, undisturbed by the conflicting +emotions which attend social intercourse in high latitudes. And they +were not idle either during these autumn months. Hidden among those wild +Cornish moors, the husband and wife were very busy together--_improving +their minds_; for Maude had confessed to her husband, with a good deal +of girlish giggling and blushing, that her own education had been very +nearly as defective as his, and that the wide fields of knowledge, which +were such strange and bewildering regions to him, were scarcely more +familiar to her. + +“And you are so clever, Frank,” she exclaimed, in conclusion--she +always called him Frank now. “You remember what those American +phrenologists--Messrs. Somebody and Something--said about your +perceptive faculties? You could learn anything, they said. And we’ll +learn together, dear; for I’m ashamed to say I’ve forgotten everything +my governesses and masters taught me, except French and music, and a +smattering of German and Italian. And I’m sure if you’d seen how, as +soon as one master had beaten anything into my brains, another master +came and beat it out again with something else, you’d scarcely wonder +that I’m ignorant. So we’ll begin together, Frank dear, and learn +everything. Won’t it be fun?” + +A young lady who looked upon the acquisition of universal knowledge as +an agreeable joke would scarcely be expected to drink very deeply of the +Pierian spring. Maude imbibed the classic water in little fitful sips, +and wasted a good deal of it in frolicsome splashing; but Francis had +read considerably, even in the midst of his London dissipation, and he +had a happy knack of remembering what he read. Mrs. Tredethlyn wrote to +a popular librarian for his catalogue; and in the pages of this pamphlet +she ticked off the solid works which she considered adapted to the +improvement of her own and her husband’s mind. + +“Merivale’s ‘History of the Romans under the Empire!’” she exclaimed; +“_that_ of course we must read. I’m sure I haven’t the faintest idea of +Julius Cæsar, except that he always seemed to have a laurel-wreath on +his head and a kind of rolling-pin--if I remember right--in his hand, +and that he once passed something called the Rubicon, though _what_ it +was I haven’t the slightest notion. We’ll have the ‘Roman Empire;’ and +when we’ve got through that, we’ll have Gibbon in _one_ volume, you +know,” said Maude, triumphantly; “he’ll _seem_ shorter in one volume, +even if the small print is rather trying to one’s eyes. Newman’s ‘Phases +of Faith’--that sounds like theology, doesn’t it? and I don’t think we +need begin theology yet, because if we got into the early schisms of the +Church, and Gnostics, and Arians, and so on, our brains wouldn’t be +clear enough for Julius Cæsar. There’s a life of Madame de Maintenon, by +the Duc de Noailles; I think we’ll have that: she’ll be quite a relief +after the ‘Roman Empire,’ because one _has_ a kind of idea about her, +and that she was a nasty old frump, and said rude things about the king, +who was so kind to her, and so on.” + +The selection of these and a great many more books was eminently +delightful; but when they came, Maude insisted on dipping into “Roman +Empires” and ponderous histories of different ages just as if they had +been so many novels; and she frisked among the records of the Reign of +Terror with a very confused idea as to the difference between the +“Mountain” and the “Gironde,” but a vivid notion of Charlotte Corday +having her portrait painted just before her death, and Citizen Roland’s +beautiful wife declaiming on the scaffold. + +They were very happy together. If Francis read in real earnest, and his +wife only played at reading, they were not the less united in their +studies. The industrious honey-bee and the frivolous butterfly may hover +about the same flower, happy according to their different natures in the +same summer noon. Francis Tredethlyn and his wife were so happy in the +quiet old farmhouse that they let the autumn days drift by them in their +moorland retreat, even after the Cornishman had grown strong enough for +a new skirmish with Harcourt Lowther, had there been any need of a +physical contest between the two men. + +“We have been so happy here, Francis,” Maude said one dim November +evening, as the husband and wife walked side by side upon the moorland +before the Grange; “but I think we have learnt to understand each other +so well now, that no one in the world will be able to divide us again. +And by-and-by, when you have read a great deal about Julius Cæsar and +political economy, and so on, and go into the HOUSE”--Maude opened her +eyes to the widest extent as she pronounced the high-sounding +substantive--“how proud I shall be of you; and I shall go to the Ladies’ +Gallery when you are going to speak! And then, when you have settled all +about the Berkshire estate, how delightful it will be to arrange our +model farm, and model stables, and pineries, and vineries, and +conservatories, and orchid-houses, and a model dairy, and a model +poultry-yard, almost as pretty as the one at Frogmore! and then how much +we shall have to think of and talk about, shan’t we, Frank?” + +“And you’ll never be ashamed of me again, Maude?” + +“Ashamed of you!” cried Mrs. Tredethlyn, innocently; “was I ever ashamed +of you?” And then she looked at her husband archly, blushing and +laughing. “Well, perhaps once, when you knocked those _petits timbales +de gibier_ into the duchess’s lap,--half-a-dozen of them at the very +least, Frank; and the night you tore Lady Ophelia Fitzormond’s old +point: but you are so refined, Frank, so improved, if I may venture to +say as much without offending you.” + +“I should be a churlish brute indeed, if I had not improved in the +society of the sweetest wife in Christendom, to say nothing of Julius +Cæsar. My great-grandfather was a gentleman, Maude; and there are few +names older than Tredethlyn, even in this land of ancient lineages. We +dropped down until we came to be represented by my grandfather, who +lived like a peasant for the sake of hoarding his money, and in whose +steps my uncle Oliver followed. I shall try to make myself a gentleman +for your sake, Maude--it would never do for people to say that the +lovely Mrs. Tredethlyn had allied herself to a man who was only a clod.” + + +After this, need it be said that all went very smoothly with Mr. and +Mrs. Tredethlyn?--so smoothly, that poor discontented Julia abandoned +the happy couple in disgust, and went abroad as travelling companion to +a rheumatic old countess, who leads her a dreadful life, and insists +upon being read to sleep out of German metaphysical works at weird hours +of the night. She has met with Roderick Lowther in the course of her +travels, lonely and cynical, looking at everything in life through the +medium of his own disappointments; for he has sought in vain for a +reconciliation with his young wife, and has found to his cost how very +firmly a gentlewoman can hold to her resolution, when her firmness is +justified by the sense of a deep and deadly wrong. + +They are very happy, Francis and Maude. The Berkshire estate is just one +of those exceptionally delightful places which drop now and then into +the hands of rich commoners when the aristocratic proprietors go to the +dogs; and the Stuccoville mansion only sees its owners during the few +months in which they skim the cream of the London season, before +scudding off to the Continent to improve their minds among the monuments +of the past, or in the most fashionable watering-places of the present. +They are very happy. As time speeds on, there appears on the lawn in +Berkshire a little rolling bundle of white muslin and expensive lace, +which, inspected closely, turns out to be a baby, and which, if it could +speak at all, would answer to the name of Lionel Hillary Tredethlyn; and +by-and-by, when the young couple travel in the bright autumn weather, a +prim English nurse and a French _bonne_ follow in their rear, and there +is a little girl baby in a white hood; and papa and mamma are alike +concerned for the safe conveyance of these domestic treasures. The girl +baby is called Maude; but she owns a string of other names; and her two +godmothers are Susan Lowther, who lives happily with her boy in the +Petersham cottage, and Rosa Grunderson, who declares that, in +consequence of the distracting influence of public characters, and her +fatal experience of the perfidy of private individuals in the person of +Roderick Lowther, she will descend a spinster to the grave. + +One day, at a German watering-place, Francis and his wife hear of a man +living in the same hotel with them, their countryman; a man who is +young, has been handsome, and who for the last few months has been +conspicuous in the gaming-saloons of the Kursaal as a desperate, and +sometimes a very lucky, player--a traveller who can scarcely be an +adventurer, for he has been admired and caressed by elegant women and +well-born men, but who has been a hard drinker from first to last, and +within the last fortnight has fallen a victim to the most hideous +disease which vice ever engendered as the scorpion-whip to work its own +retribution,--a disease called delirium tremens. + +The landlord of the hotel tells Mr. Tredethlyn how this wretched +Englishman has his bad fits and his intervals of quiet; how he will lie +down calmly enough perhaps at night, to start up mad in the dim grey +morning, to walk far out into the country, hurrying wildly before the +fiend that pursues him; and to fall exhausted in some desolate spot, and +lie there till some passing peasant picks him up and conveys him back to +his lodging. The landlord describes, with considerable vivacity and +gesticulation, how this poor afflicted creature will sit for hours +together catching at imaginary insects that buzz about him and torment +him; how he will watch and point to falling snow, that never falls; how +with a power that is hideously graphic, he will describe the devils that +dance and gibber round his miserable bed. He tells how the shutting of a +door, the rustling of a newspaper, the flutter of a falling leaf, will +startle this unhappy sufferer more than an unexpected peal of thunder +would startle another man. He describes the sleeplessness which no +opiate is strong enough to conquer, the restlessness and depression with +which medical science struggles in vain. He tells Francis Tredethlyn, in +confidence, that the poor ailing wretch is all but penniless, and that +very scanty supplies of money come to him in reply to the letters he +writes to England now and then in his rational moments. + +It scarcely needs Maude’s appealing look to inspire Francis with the +wish to help this unhappy countryman. He says nothing to his wife, but +he goes by-and-by to smoke his cigar in the lamplit quadrangle, where +there is a café, and a smoking-room, and a reading-room, and a +post-office, and a perpetual chatter of divers tongues, and clatter of +hurrying feet. He is a long time smoking that cigar; and yet Maude feels +no displeasure in his absence, as she sits alone in her balcony looking +out at the lamplit town and the solemn forest looming darkly in the +distance. She knows that whatever impulse stirs her own heart is almost +sure to find an answering impulse in her husband’s; and she can guess +what keeps him so long to-night. + +He has spoken to the landlord, he tells her, when he comes back, and has +given him a cheque which is to keep things smooth for the present, and +has promised more money, if more should be needed; for in any case the +Englishman is not to be worried about money matters while he is ill; and +above all he is not to know that a stranger’s help has saved him from +annoyance. + +“The landlord persuaded me to go into the--poor fellow’s room, +afterwards,” said Francis, slowly. “He thought it would cheer him up a +little to shake a countryman by the hand; and I did go in, Maude,--and I +saw him.” + +“Yes, dear; and the interview has made you unhappy, I’m sure. You are +looking dreadfully pale!” + +“The man is very ill, Maude, very ill. Yes, the sight of him did almost +knock me over, I assure you.” + +It was a week after this when Mr. and Mrs. Tredethlyn left the German +watering-place. They were on the point of starting from the hotel when +Maude noticed the closed shutters of some windows on an upper story, and +on questioning one of the waiters, was told that the Englishman was +dead. She asked her husband to tell her more about the painful end of +this lonely Englishman, as they sat alone in the _coupé_ of a railway +carriage. + +“Yes, he is dead, Maude,” Francis answered, sadly. “It was a very +melancholy fate. The doctors could not conquer the sleeplessness, and he +sank at last into a state of coma from which he never rallied. It was a +very miserable ending. He will he buried in the little Protestant +cemetery. I left all necessary directions, and I have written to his +friends in England. Perhaps some one who cared for him will come over to +stand beside his grave. He was no friend of mine; but there seems +something very shocking in this solitary death in a foreign country.” + +“He was no friend of yours!” repeated Maude, wonderingly; “how strangely +you say that, Frank! You knew him, then?” + +“Yes, Maude, and you knew him too. The man who died last night was +Harcourt Lowther!” + + + THE END. + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + + + + MISS M. C. HAY’S NOVELS + + + UNIFORM EDITION. Price 2s.; cloth gilt, 2s. 6d. + + + NORA’S LOVE TEST + +‘“Nora” is good.’--_Athenæum._ + +‘This book has, what is very rare in novels, a distinct interest as a +story.’--_Academy._ + +‘Bright, fresh, and sparkling.... It is full of interest.’--_Examiner._ + + Also ready, by the same Author, Uniform Edition, + + OLD MYDDELTON’S MONEY. + HIDDEN PERILS. + VICTOR AND VANQUISHED. + THE ARUNDEL MOTTO. + THE SQUIRE’S LEGACY. + BRENDA YORKE. [_In the Press._ + UNDER THE WILL. + + + + + MR. W. G. WILLS’S NOVELS + + Price 2s. each; cloth gilt, 2s. 6d. + + 1. DAVID CHANTREY. + 2. THE WIFE’S EVIDENCE. + 3. NOTICE TO QUIT. [_In the Press._ + 4. THE THREE WATCHES. + 5. LIFE’S FORESHADOWING. + + + Price 2s. Cloth gilt, 2s. 6d. + + PUT TO THE TEST. EDITED BY M. E. BRADDON. + ONLY A WOMAN. Do. + ON HER MAJESTY’S SECRET SERVICE. + MISSES AND MATRIMONY. BY LIEUT.-COL. KNOLLYS. + + + Price 1s., boards. + + BUSH LIFE IN ZULULAND. BY MRS. F. AYLMER. + + + Illustrated. Price 2s. 6d. Paper boards. Cloth gilt, 3s. 6d. + + TWICE ROUND THE CLOCK. BY G. A. SALA. + + _N.B.--The Cloth Edition of this book makes_ + _a very handsome and useful Present._ + + + + + MR. W. S. HAYWARD’S NOVELS + CHEAP NEW EDITIONS. + + + _Price 2s. each; cloth gilt, 2s. 6d._ + +HUNTED TO DEATH. A Novel of the most alluring interest. + +PERILS OF A PRETTY GIRL. A Novel founded upon real life. + +LOVE AGAINST THE WORLD. A Novel showing that the “course of true love + never did run smooth.” + +ETHEL GREY. A Novel unsurpassed for dramatic power and depth of plot. + +MAUDE LUTON. A Novel descriptive of the most charming traits in woman’s + nature. + +CAROLINE. A Novel of the most captivating character, full of variety, + pathos, and feminine interest. + +THE THREE RED MEN. A Novel possessing all the charms of romance and all + the graces of a genuine love-story. + +JOHN HAZEL’S VENGEANCE. + +BARBARA HOME. + +⁂ Mr. W. STEPHENS HAYWARD’S Novels have taken their place amongst the +most popular works of the present day. They command a ready and large +sale in all the colonies, where the scenes of some are laid, and where +the author passed through many of the incidents so graphically and +faithfully described in some of his most interesting Novels. + + + MISS DORA RUSSELL’S NOVELS + + Price 2s., Ornamental Cover; 2s. 6d. cloth gilt. + + 1. FOOTPRINTS IN THE SNOW. + 2. THE VICAR’S GOVERNESS. + 3. BENEATH THE WAVE. + + + MRS. EDWARDS’ NOVEL + + Price 2s., Ornamental Cover; 2s. 6d. cloth gilt. + + THE MORALS OF MAY-FAIR. + + + LONDON: JOHN AND ROBERT MAXWELL + MILTON HOUSE, SHOE LANE, FLEET STREET, E.C. + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + + + + Transcriber’s Notes + + +This file uses _underscores_ to indicate italic text. New original cover +art included with this eBook is granted to the public domain. Itemized +changes from the original text: + + • Table of Contents: Supplied missing period after chapter number IV. + • p. 10: Changed “Deptfort” to “Deptford” in phrase “embarked at + Deptford on a misty morning in October.” + • p. 16: Changed exclamation mark after “child” to comma in phrase “his + only child, too, for the matter of that.” + • p. 16: Supplied missing closing quotation mark after phrase “bring + out your desk, and write at once.” + • p. 22: Replaced double with single closing quotation mark in phrase + “the lawyer’s letter!--‘Francis Tredethlyn, Esq.!’ eh?” + • p. 35: Supplied missing closing quotation mark after phrase “I’m + every bit as far from Susy now as ever I was out yonder.” + • p. 51: Changed “Hilary” to “Hillary” in phrase “Lionel Hillary, + Australian merchant, of Moorgate Street.” + • p. 69: Supplied missing period after “Mr.” in phrase “She sighed as + she admitted to Mr. Tredethlyn that her name was Burfield.” + • p. 72: Supplied missing closing quotation mark after phrase “with her + relations in the country.” + • p. 80: Supplied missing period after “Mrs.” in phrase “He had only + been able to read Mrs. Burfield’s story in one fashion.” + • p. 111: Omitted repeated word “as” in phrase “appeared to resent any + inquiries as to his state.” + • p. 169: Changed “gaities” to “gaieties” in phrase “amidst all the + gaieties and luxuries and successes of the most wonderful city in the + world.” + • p. 188: Replaced double with single closing quotation mark after + phrase “what have you done with Robert?” + • p. 202: Changed “Cliquot” to “Clicquot” in phrase “under the + influence of unlimited Moet or Clicquot.” + • p. 214: Supplied missing period after phrase “some one proposed an + adjournment to an adjacent theatre.” + • p. 224: Supplied missing letter “s” in “Turner’s” in phrase “I’ll + slip over and get Miss Turner’s direction.” + • p. 227: Supplied missing single closing quotation mark after phrase + “I don’t think I shall ever bring my mind to go there, or to see + them.” + • p. 241: Several words at the top of this page were missing from the + images used to produce this eBook. The words “said,” “set,” and + “heiress” were confirmed from the original 1864-65 serial + publication. + • p. 246: Changed “Burlegh” to “Burleigh” in phrase “And long he + mourned, the Lord of Burleigh.” + • p. 250: Changed “looing” to “looking” in phrase “looking sharply at + the myosotis in her nephew’s button-hole.” + • p. 266: Changed dash to period after phrase “exclaimed Mr. Harcourt, + who had said all he wanted to say.” + • p. 268: Changed “reurned” to “returned” in phrase “when the + water-party returned to the Cedars.” + • p. 271: Omitted closing double quotation mark after phrase “willing + to lay down his very life for her pleasure.” + • p. 280: Added semicolon after phrase “I have been face to face with + starvation, Frank, very often within the last two years.” + • p. 286: Supplied missing period after “Mr.” in phrase “The quiet + rubber at Mr. Lowther’s lodgings generally led to other rubbers + elsewhere.” + • p. 289: Supplied missing period after phrase “while Francis was + shaking hands with some of the men.” + • p. 292: Supplied missing letter “n” in “man” in phrase “a big man + with a black moustache.” + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 76927 *** diff --git a/76927-h/76927-h.htm b/76927-h/76927-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..aa4cbf8 --- /dev/null +++ b/76927-h/76927-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,19000 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html> +<html lang="en"> + <head> + <meta charset="UTF-8"> + <title>Only a Clod | Project Gutenberg</title> + <link rel="icon" href="images/cover.jpg" type="image/x-cover"> + <style> + body { margin-left: 8%; margin-right: 10%; } + h1 { text-align: center; font-weight: normal; font-size: 1.4em; } + h2 { text-align: center; font-weight: normal; font-size: 1.2em; } + .pageno { right: 1%; font-size: x-small; background-color: inherit; color: silver; + text-indent: 0em; text-align: right; position: absolute; + border: thin solid silver; padding: .1em .2em; font-style: normal; + font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; } + p { text-indent: 0; margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.5em; text-align: justify; } + .fss { font-size: 75%; } + .sc { font-variant: small-caps; } + .large { font-size: large; } + .xlarge { font-size: x-large; } + .small { font-size: small; } + .xsmall { font-size: x-small; } + .lg-container-b { text-align: center; } + .x-ebookmaker .lg-container-b { clear: both; } + .linegroup { display: inline-block; text-align: left; } + .x-ebookmaker .linegroup { display: block; margin-left: 1.5em; } + .linegroup .group { margin: 1em auto; } + .linegroup .line { text-indent: -3em; padding-left: 3em; } + div.linegroup > :first-child { margin-top: 0; } + ul.ul_1 {padding-left: 0; margin-left: 2.78%; margin-top: .5em; + margin-bottom: .5em; list-style-type: disc; } + div.pbb { page-break-before: always; } + hr.pb { border: none; border-bottom: thin solid; margin-bottom: 1em; } + .x-ebookmaker hr.pb { display: none; } + .table0 { margin: auto; margin-top: 2em; } + .table1 { margin: auto; } + .nf-center { text-align: center; } + .nf-center-c0 { text-align: left; margin: 0.5em 0; } + .nf-center-c1 { text-align: left; margin: 1em 0; } + .c000 { page-break-before: always; margin-top: 4em; } + .c001 { margin-top: 1em; } + .c002 { margin-top: 4em; } + .c003 { page-break-before:auto; margin-top: 4em; } + .c004 { vertical-align: top; text-align: right; padding-right: 1em; } + .c005 { vertical-align: top; text-align: left; padding-right: 1em; } + .c006 { vertical-align: top; text-align: right; } + .c007 { margin-top: 2em; text-indent: 1em; margin-bottom: 0.25em; } + .c008 { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: 0.25em; margin-bottom: 0.25em; } + .c009 { margin-left: 5.56%; margin-right: 5.56%; margin-top: 2em; } + .c010 { margin-left: 5.56%; margin-right: 5.56%; text-indent: 1em; + margin-top: 0.25em; margin-bottom: 0.25em; } + .c011 { margin-left: 5.56%; margin-right: 5.56%; text-align: right; } + .c012 { margin-left: 5.56%; margin-right: 5.56%; text-indent: 8.33%; + margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 0.25em; } + .c013 { margin-top: 2em; } + .c014 { text-indent: 0; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 0.25em; } + .c015 { margin-left: 5.56%; margin-right: 5.56%; margin-top: 2em; text-indent: 1em; + margin-bottom: 0.25em; } + .c016 { margin-left: 5.56%; text-indent: -5.56%; margin-top: 0.25em; + margin-bottom: 0.25em; } + .c017 { margin-top: 4em; margin-bottom: 0.25em; } + .c018 { margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 0.25em; } + .transcribers-notes { width: 80%; margin: auto; padding: 0 1em; + color:black; background-color: #E3E4FA; border: 1px solid silver; + page-break-before:always;margin-top:4em; } + div.linegroup > :last-child { margin-bottom: 0; } + .closing {margin-right:25%; } + .spacer {display:inline-block;width:5em; } + </style> + </head> + <body> +<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 76927 ***</div> + +<div> + <h1 class='c000'>ONLY A CLOD</h1> +</div> + +<div class='nf-center-c1'> +<div class='nf-center c001'> + <div>A Novel</div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class='nf-center-c1'> + <div class='nf-center'> + <div><span class='small'>BY THE AUTHOR OF</span></div> + <div>“LADY AUDLEY’S SECRET,” “AURORA FLOYD”</div> + <div>ETC. ETC. ETC.</div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class='nf-center-c1'> + <div class='nf-center'> + <div>Stereotyped Edition</div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class='nf-center-c1'> + <div class='nf-center'> + <div><span class='small'>LONDON</span></div> + <div>JOHN AND ROBERT MAXWELL</div> + <div><span class='small'>MILTON HOUSE, SHOE LANE, FLEET STREET</span></div> + <div><span class='xsmall'>[<i>All rights reserved</i>]</span></div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class='pbb'> + <hr class='pb c001'> +</div> + +<div class='nf-center-c1'> +<div class='nf-center c002'> + <div><span class='xsmall'>TO</span></div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class='nf-center-c1'> + <div class='nf-center'> + <div><span class='large'>OCTAVE DELEPIERRE, F.S.A., LL.D.</span></div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class='nf-center-c1'> + <div class='nf-center'> + <div><span class='small'>AND</span></div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class='nf-center-c1'> + <div class='nf-center'> + <div><span class='large'>HIS CHARMING WIFE, CHARLOTTE</span></div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class='nf-center-c1'> + <div class='nf-center'> + <div>This Story is Inscribed</div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class='nf-center-c1'> + <div class='nf-center'> + <div><span class='small'>IN REMEMBRANCE OF MANY PLEASANT HOURS</span></div> + <div><span class='small'>PASSED WITH THEM.</span></div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class='pbb'> + <hr class='pb c001'> +</div> + +<div> + <h2 class='c003'>CONTENTS.</h2> +</div> + +<table class='table0'> + <tr> + <td class='c004'>CHAP.</td> + <td class='c005'> </td> + <td class='c006'>PAGE</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c004'>I.</td> + <td class='c005'><span class='sc'>The master</span></td> + <td class='c006'><a href='#chapter-I'>5</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c004'>II.</td> + <td class='c005'><span class='sc'>The man</span></td> + <td class='c006'><a href='#chapter-II'>11</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c004'>III.</td> + <td class='c005'><span class='sc'>Tidings of home</span></td> + <td class='c006'><a href='#chapter-III'>14</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c004'><a id='tn-iv'></a>IV.</td> + <td class='c005'><span class='sc'>Tredethlyn’s luck</span></td> + <td class='c006'><a href='#chapter-IV'>17</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c004'>V.</td> + <td class='c005'><span class='sc'>Coming home</span></td> + <td class='c006'><a href='#chapter-V'>26</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c004'>VI.</td> + <td class='c005'><span class='sc'>The end of the world</span></td> + <td class='c006'><a href='#chapter-VI'>32</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c004'>VII.</td> + <td class='c005'><span class='sc'>Maude Hillary’s adorers</span></td> + <td class='c006'><a href='#chapter-VII'>42</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c004'>VIII.</td> + <td class='c005'><span class='sc'>At the Chateau de Bourbon</span></td> + <td class='c006'><a href='#chapter-VIII'>50</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c004'>IX.</td> + <td class='c005'><span class='sc'>Julia Desmond makes herself agreeable</span></td> + <td class='c006'><a href='#chapter-IX'>53</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c004'>X.</td> + <td class='c005'><span class='sc'>Coltonslough</span></td> + <td class='c006'><a href='#chapter-X'>62</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c004'>XI.</td> + <td class='c005'><span class='sc'>A very old story</span></td> + <td class='c006'><a href='#chapter-XI'>69</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c004'>XII.</td> + <td class='c005'><span class='sc'>A modern gentleman’s diary</span></td> + <td class='c006'><a href='#chapter-XII'>80</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c004'>XIII.</td> + <td class='c005'><span class='sc'>Caught in the toils</span></td> + <td class='c006'><a href='#chapter-XIII'>94</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c004'>XIV.</td> + <td class='c005'><span class='sc'>Very private theatricals</span></td> + <td class='c006'><a href='#chapter-XIV'>100</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c004'>XV.</td> + <td class='c005'><span class='sc'>A commercial crisis</span></td> + <td class='c006'><a href='#chapter-XV'>108</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c004'>XVI.</td> + <td class='c005'><span class='sc'>A drama that was acted behind the scenes</span></td> + <td class='c006'><a href='#chapter-XVI'>123</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c004'>XVII.</td> + <td class='c005'><span class='sc'>Something like friendship</span></td> + <td class='c006'><a href='#chapter-XVII'>139</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c004'>XVIII.</td> + <td class='c005'><span class='sc'>Poor Francis</span></td> + <td class='c006'><a href='#chapter-XVIII'>143</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c004'>XIX.</td> + <td class='c005'><span class='sc'>Mr. Hillary speaks his mind</span></td> + <td class='c006'><a href='#chapter-XIX'>151</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c004'>XX.</td> + <td class='c005'><span class='sc'>An explanation</span></td> + <td class='c006'><a href='#chapter-XX'>156</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c004'>XXI.</td> + <td class='c005'><span class='sc'>Harcourt Lowther’s welcome</span></td> + <td class='c006'><a href='#chapter-XXI'>161</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c004'>XXII.</td> + <td class='c005'><span class='sc'>Taking it quietly</span></td> + <td class='c006'><a href='#chapter-XXII'>167</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c004'>XXIII.</td> + <td class='c005'><span class='sc'>Tidings of Susan</span></td> + <td class='c006'><a href='#chapter-XXIII'>176</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c004'>XXIV.</td> + <td class='c005'><span class='sc'>Francis Tredethlyn’s disinterested adviser</span></td> + <td class='c006'><a href='#chapter-XXIV'>190</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c004'>XXV.</td> + <td class='c005'><span class='sc'>The road to ruin</span></td> + <td class='c006'><a href='#chapter-XXV'>196</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c004'>XXVI.</td> + <td class='c005'><span class='sc'>A chilling reconciliation</span></td> + <td class='c006'><a href='#chapter-XXVI'>203</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c004'>XXVII.</td> + <td class='c005'><span class='sc'>Seeing a ghost</span></td> + <td class='c006'><a href='#chapter-XXVII'>211</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c004'>XXVIII.</td> + <td class='c005'>“<span class='sc'>Oh, my Amy! mine no more!</span>”</td> + <td class='c006'><a href='#chapter-XXVIII'>219</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c004'>XXIX.</td> + <td class='c005'><span class='sc'>Entanglements in the web</span></td> + <td class='c006'><a href='#chapter-XXIX'>232</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c004'>XXX.</td> + <td class='c005'><span class='sc'>The two Antipholi</span></td> + <td class='c006'><a href='#chapter-XXX'>238</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c004'>XXXI.</td> + <td class='c005'><span class='sc'>The diplomatist’s policy</span></td> + <td class='c006'><a href='#chapter-XXXI'>243</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c004'>XXXII.</td> + <td class='c005'><span class='sc'>Harcourt gathers his first fruits</span></td> + <td class='c006'><a href='#chapter-XXXII'>253</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c004'>XXXIII.</td> + <td class='c005'><span class='sc'>Rosa’s revelations</span></td> + <td class='c006'><a href='#chapter-XXXIII'>266</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c004'>XXXIV.</td> + <td class='c005'><span class='sc'>The lady at Petersham</span></td> + <td class='c006'><a href='#chapter-XXXIV'>279</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c004'>XXXV.</td> + <td class='c005'><span class='sc'>A hasty reckoning</span></td> + <td class='c006'><a href='#chapter-XXXV'>287</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c004'>XXXVI.</td> + <td class='c005'><span class='sc'>Poor Frank’s letter</span></td> + <td class='c006'><a href='#chapter-XXXVI'>296</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c004'>XXXVII.</td> + <td class='c005'><span class='sc'>Eleanor drops in upon Rosamond</span></td> + <td class='c006'><a href='#chapter-XXXVII'>302</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c004'>XXXVIII.</td> + <td class='c005'><span class='sc'>Gone</span></td> + <td class='c006'><a href='#chapter-XXXVIII'>310</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c004'>XXXIX.</td> + <td class='c005'><span class='sc'>Too late</span></td> + <td class='c006'><a href='#chapter-XXXIX'>317</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c004'>XL.</td> + <td class='c005'><span class='sc'>An ignominious failure</span></td> + <td class='c006'><a href='#chapter-XL'>322</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c004'>XLI.</td> + <td class='c005'><span class='sc'>Susan’s good news</span></td> + <td class='c006'><a href='#chapter-XLI'>331</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c004'>XLII.</td> + <td class='c005'><span class='sc'>A perfect union</span></td> + <td class='c006'><a href='#chapter-XLII'>341</a></td> + </tr> +</table> + +<div class='pbb'> + <hr class='pb c001'> +</div> + +<div class='nf-center-c0'> +<div class='nf-center c002'> + <div><span class='xlarge'>ONLY A CLOD</span></div> + </div> +</div> + +<div> + +<div> + <h2 class='c003'><a id='chapter-I'></a>CHAPTER I.<br> <br><span class='fss'>THE MASTER.</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_5'>5</span>Ensign Harcourt Lowther, of her Majesty’s 51st Light Infantry, +sat staring out into his garden at Port Arthur, watching +a couple of convict gardeners—who were going about their +work with a monotonous and exasperating deliberation of movement—and +lamenting the evil fortune that had stationed him +in his present quarters. He had a great many troubles, this +elegant young ensign, who was, for the time being, destined to +bloom unseen, and waste the graces that ought to have adorned +Belgravia upon the desert air of the island of Tasmania. He +had, as he himself elegantly expressed it, no end of troubles. +First and foremost, his cigar would not draw; and as it was +the last of a case of choice cabanas, the calamity was not a +small one. Secondly, there had been a drought in fair Van +Diemen’s Land for the last month or so. The verdure was +growing brown and leathery; the feathery masses of the tall +fern shrivelled at the edges like scorched paper; the stiff foliage +of the cedars seemed to rattle as it shook in the dry, dust-laden +wind, and the thermometer stood at a hundred and ten in the +shade; true, it might drop forty degrees or so at any moment, +with the uprising of a moist breeze from the sea, but, pending +the arrival of that auspicious moment, Mr Lowther was in a +very bad temper. What had he done that he should be +stationed in a convict settlement, with no chance of any gain +or glory as compensation for his trials; with no one to speak to +except a prosy old police-magistrate or a puritanical chaplain; +with nothing better to look at than the eternal blue of the +ocean, or a whaling vessel anchored in the bay; with nothing +to listen to except the clanking of hammers and banging of +timber and jingling of iron in the busy dockyard; with no +better enjoyment to hope for than a couple of days’ quail-shooting +or kangaroo-hunting in the interior?</p> + +<p class='c008'>“If I’d been Desperate Bill the Burglar, or Slippery Steeve +the Smasher, I couldn’t be <em>much</em> worse off,” he muttered, as he +<span class='pageno' id='Page_6'>6</span>gave up the unmanageable cigar, and went across the room to a +table, upon which there were some tobacco-jars and meerschaum +pipes. “Now, then, Tredethlyn, are those boots ready?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>This question was addressed to an invisible some one, whose +low whistling of a jovial Irish air was audible from the adjoining +room.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Yes, captain,” answered a cheery voice—the whistler had +broken off in the middle of the “wild sweet briery fence that +around the flowers of Erin dwells,”—“yes, captain, quite ready.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“That’s another aggravation,” exclaimed Mr. Lowther,—“the +fellow will call me captain; as if it wasn’t an underhand +way of reminding me that for a poor devil like me there’s no +chance of promotion.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“But you see you <em>are</em> captain here, Mr. Lowther,” said the +whistler, emerging from the adjoining chamber with a pair +of newly-blacked Wellingtons in his hand; “you’re captain, +major, colonel, general, and field-marshal, all in one here, with +seventy men under your control, and any amount of convicts to +look after.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“If there’s one thing in the world that’s more excruciating +than another, it’s that fellow’s cheerfulness,” cried Mr. Lowther. +I can fancy the feelings of an elegant young French +marquis of the <span lang="fr"><i>vieille roche</i></span>, a scion of the Mortemars or +Birons, buried alive in an underground cell in the Bastille, with +a lively commoner for his companion—a cheerful <span lang="fr"><i>bourgeois</i></span>, who +pretended to make light of his situation, and eat his mouldy +bread with a relish. “Now, then, Tredethlyn, where are the +boot-hooks? That fellow always forgets something.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“That fellow,” otherwise Francis Tredethlyn, was a tall, +stalwart private soldier, of some seven-and-twenty years of age, +who had been honoured by an appointment to the post of valet +and butler to Ensign Harcourt Lowther.</p> + +<p class='c008'>If the stalwart soldier had not been blest with one of those +imperturbable Mark-Tapley-like tempers, which resemble the +patent elliptic springs of a crack coachbuilder’s carriage, and +can convey the traveller unjolted and uninjured over the roughest +roads in the journey of life, he might have found his position +as valet, major-domo, and occasional confidant to Harcourt +Lowther, far from the pleasantest berth to be had in this great +tempest-tossed vessel which we call the world. But Francis +Tredethlyn’s serenity of disposition was proof against the most +wearisome burden a man is ever called upon to bear—the companionship +of a discontented fellow-creature, and all the variable +moods, from a feverish cynical kind of gaiety to a dreary and +ill-tempered gravity, which were engendered out of that perpetual +discontent.</p> + +<p class='c008'>But Frank Tredethlyn bore it all cheerfully; with a manly, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_7'>7</span>open-hearted cheerfulness that had no taint of sycophancy. If +the young ensign wanted to talk to him, well and good—he was +ready and willing to talk about any thing or every thing; but +he had his own sentiments upon most subjects, which sentiments +were of a very fast colour, and did not take any reflected +hue from Mr. Lowther’s aristocratic opinions.</p> + +<p class='c008'>It is not to be supposed that Francis Tredethlyn, private +soldier and valet, had any claims to intellectual equality with +his master. The private wrote a fair commercial hand, very +bold and big and resolute-looking; could read aloud without +stumbling ignominiously over the long words; could cast up +accounts; and, looking back at the history of the universal +past, saw glimmering faintly over a sea of darkness and oblivion +such beacon-lights as a Norman invasion; a solemn meeting on +the flat turf of Runnymede; a Reformation, with a good deal +of martyr-burning and head-chopping attendant thereupon; a +fiery hook-nosed Dutch liberator, a Jacobite rebellion, and a +Reform Bill. Beyond these limits the attainments of Mr. +Tredethlyn did not extend; and the ensign, when grumbling at +the general discomfort of his life, was apt to say that it was a +hard thing to be flung for companionship on a fellow who was +nothing but a boor and a clod.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Mr. Lowther treated his valet very much as a spoiled child +treats her doll; sometimes it pleased him to be monstrously +cordial and familiar with his attendant, while at another time +he held Francis aloof by a haughty reserve of manner, beyond +which barrier the other made no effort to penetrate.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“The fellow does possess that merit,” Harcourt Lowther said +sometimes, “he knows how to keep his place.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>The fact of the matter is, the valet was infinitely less dependent +upon his master’s companionship than his master upon +his. There were a hundred ways in which Francis Tredethlyn +could amuse himself; and there was not a cloud in the sky, a +wave of the sea, a leaf in the garden, out of which he could +not take some scrap of pleasure, and which had not a deeper +and truer meaning for him than for the idle young officer who +lay yawning upon his narrow couch with his feet in the air, +and nothing better to do than to admire the shape of his boots, +obtained on credit from a confiding West-end tradesman. +Francis had that wide sympathy with his fellow-creatures which +is a special attribute of some men; and was on the friendliest +possible terms with the two convict gardeners, both of whom +had achieved some renown as the most incorrigible and execrable +specimens of the criminal class. Every dog in the little +settlement fawned upon Frank Tredethlyn, and ran to rub his +head against his knees, and slaver his hand with its flapping +tongue. He had made a kennel for two or three of these canine +<span class='pageno' id='Page_8'>8</span>acquaintances in a shady corner of the big garden, much to the +disgust and annoyance of the ensign, who only cared for such +dogs as are calculated to assist the sports of their lord and +master. Staghounds and beagles, foxhounds and terriers, setters, +pointers, and retrievers, clever ratting Scotch terriers, well-bred +and savage bulls, even little short-eared toy terriers, or +fawn-coloured and black-muzzled pugs, were all very well +placed in the scheme of creation: but Mr. Lowther could find +no explanation for the existence of those mongrel creatures who +seem to have nothing to do in the world but to attach themselves +with slavish devotion to some brutal master, or to lie in +the most disreputable courts and alleys of a city in hot weather +and catch flies.</p> + +<p class='c008'>But, somehow or other, Francis Tredethlyn seemed generally +to do pretty much as he liked, in spite of military despotism +and Mr. Harcourt Lowther. The dogs were unmolested in their +shady corner; and the ensign was so good as to say that a +little aviary of wicker-work and wire, which Tredethlyn constructed +in his leisure hours, and duly filled with tiny feathered +inhabitants, that kept up a faint twittering in the sunshine, was +an improvement to the cottage. Francis was very handy, and +could do wonders with a hammer and a handful of tin tacks; +and was, indeed, altogether a great acquisition to his master, as +Mr. Corbett, the police-magistrate, sometimes remarked to +Harcourt Lowther.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Yes,” Harcourt answered, indifferently, “the fellow is a cut +above most of his class. He is a Cornishman, it seems, and the +son of a small farmer in that land of Tre, Pol, and Pen; and he +tells me that he has an old miser uncle who is supposed to be +preternaturally rich. Egad! I wish I had such an uncle! All +my uncles are misers for the matter of that; but then, unluckily, +the poor devils are misers because they’re preternaturally poor.”</p> + +<p class='c007'>Mr. Lowther stood before the little looking-glass, in the sunny +window, admiring himself, while Francis Tredethlyn helped him +on with his coat. He was going to dine with Mr. Corbett the +magistrate, and to spend the evening in the society of Miss +Corbett, who had come out to the colony with the idea that +general officers and wealthy judges would be waiting on the +shore ready to conduct her from the place of debarcation to the +hymeneal altar, and had been a little soured by the disenchantment +which had too surely followed her arrival. She was a +gushing damsel of thirty-five, very tall and square, and of a +prevailing drab colour; and she played tremendous variations +of shrill Scottish melodies on a piano which had been warranted +to preserve its purity of tone in any climate, but upon which +the nearest thing to an harmonious octave was a wild stretch of +<span class='pageno' id='Page_9'>9</span>thirteen notes. Mr. Lowther must have been very low in the +world when he had nothing better to do than to sit by Miss +Corbett’s piano while she banged and rattled at the numerous +disguises under which “Kinloch of Kinloch” appeared in a +fantasia of twelve pages, now prancing jauntily in triplets, now +rushing up and down the piano in chromatic scales, now scampering +wildly in double arpeggios, now banging himself out of +all knowledge in common chords, or wailing dismally in a hideous +minor. Fate had done its worst for Ensign Lowther, when he +had no better amusement than to lounge by the side of that ill-used +old instrument, staring reflectively at the thin places on +the top of Miss Corbett’s drab-coloured head.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Harcourt Lowther stood before the glass admiring his handsome +face, while his valet brushed the collar of his coat. Well, +he had a right to admire himself! If Providence had treated +him badly, capricious Mother Nature, who, like any other +frivolous-minded parent, elects her prime favourites without +rhyme or reason, had been very bountiful to him in the matter +of an aquiline nose, a finely-modelled mouth and chin, and deep +womanish blue eyes, with a shimmer of gold on their lashes. +No one could deny Mr. Lowther’s claim to be considered a remarkably +handsome man, an elegant young man, a very agreeable +and accomplished gentleman. The world, of course, had +nothing to do with that rougher edge of the ensign’s character +which he turned to his valet Francis Tredethlyn in his cottage +at Port Arthur.</p> + +<p class='c008'>He went out presently, swinging his thin cane, and whistling +all the triplets and cadences of an elaborate <span lang="it"><i>scena</i></span>; he was an +amateur musician and an amateur artist, playing more or less +upon two or three different instruments, and painting more or +less in half-a-dozen different styles. He could ride across country +to the astonishment of burly Leicestershire squires, who +were inclined to think contemptuously of his small waist and +pretty blue eyes, his amber-tinted, jockey-club perfumed whiskers, +trim tops, and unstained “pink.” He was a good shot, and +long ago at Harrow had been renowned as a cricketer. He spoke +three or four modern languages, and had that dim recollection +of his classic studies which is sufficient for a man of the world +who knows how to make much out of little. He was altogether +a very accomplished gentleman; but with him intellectual +pursuits were a means rather than an end, and he took very little +pleasure in the society of books or bookmen. He wanted to be +in the world, foremost in the perpetual strife, amid the crash of +drums and trumpets, the roaring of cannon, and glitter of emblazoned +standards flaunting gallantly in the wind. He wanted +to be one of the conquerors in the universal tournament, and to +ride up to the Queen of Beauty flushed and triumphant after +<span class='pageno' id='Page_10'>10</span>the strife, to be admired and caressed. This is why the inaction +of his present existence was so utterly intolerable to him. He +had a supreme belief in himself, and in the indisputable nature +of his right to the best and brightest amongst earth’s prizes. +The time must be indeed out of joint in which there was nothing +better for such as he than a dreary convict settlement in the +island of Tasmania.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Unluckily, the time <em>was</em> out of joint. Robert Lowther, of +Lowther Hall, Hampshire, had given his younger son an aristocratic +name and a gentlemanly education; and then, having +nothing more to bestow upon him, had been forced to leave the +lad to fish for himself in the troubled waters of life. The prospects +of the junior had always been more or less sacrificed to +those of the senior of Robert Lowther’s two sons, and Harcourt +bore a hearty grudge against his father and his brother on this +account. Plainly told that he was to expect no more assistance +from the parent purse, the young man had elected to become a +barrister; but after a three years’ course of reading, in which +the cultivation of light literature and modern languages was +diversified by a slight sprinkling of legal study, he had grown +heartily sick of his shabbily-furnished third floor in Hare Court, +Temple, and had gladly accepted the price of a commission in +one of Her Majesty’s light infantry regiments from an affectionate +maiden aunt, believing that the regiment would be +speedily under orders for India, where glory and loot no doubt +awaited a dashing young soldier with a very high opinion of his +own merits.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Unhappily for Mr. Lowther the regiment did not go to India; +but he and his captain, with a detachment of seventy rank and +file, <a id='tn-deptford'></a>embarked at Deptford on a misty morning in October, in +charge of 450 convicts bound for Hobart Town. At the time of +which I write the ensign had been nearly a twelvemonth in Van +Diemen’s Land, and before him lay the prospect of another +dreary year which must elapse before there was much chance of +his seeing a change of quarters. There are some people who +take their troubles with a cheerful countenance and make the +best of a bad bargain; but Mr. Lowther was not one of them. +He had begun to grumble before the convict ship left Deptford; +and he had gone on complaining, with very little intermission, +until to-day, and was likely so to continue until the end of the +chapter. Napoleon at St. Helena could scarcely have felt his +exile more keenly; nor could that fallen hero have more bitterly +resented the injustice of his fate than Harcourt Osborne Lowther, +who believed that there must be something radically wrong in a +universe in which there was no provision of 40,000<i>l.</i> or so a year +for an elegant young man with a perfect aquiline nose, a clear +ringing touch upon the piano, a trumpet tone on the flute, a +<span class='pageno' id='Page_11'>11</span>talent for taking pen-and-ink portraits that were equal to anything +of Count D’Orsay’s, and an irreproachable taste in waistcoats.</p> + +<p class='c008'>He went out now in very tolerable spirits; first, because he +had worked himself into a good temper by grumbling to himself +and Tredethlyn all day; secondly, because he was going to have +a good dinner and some rare old tawny port, which was the +boast of Mr. Corbett the magistrate; and thirdly, because he +was going to be admired; and in a Tasmanian settlement even +the worship of a young lady with bony fingers and drab-coloured +eyes and hair is not altogether a despicable tribute.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“When I hear ‘Kinloch of Kinloch’ tortured out of all semblance +of himself upon that wretched piano, I let myself go +somehow or other,” thought the ensign, “and I fancy myself +standing behind Maude Hillary’s Broadwood in the long drawing-room +at Twickenham. Twickenham! Shall I ever see +Twickenham again, and Maude Hillary, and the twinkling light +upon the river, and the low branches of the chestnuts, the +sedgy banks, the lazy boats, the lights up at the ‘Star and +Garter’ glimmering across the dusky valley? Shall I ever see +that fair civilised land again? or shall I die in this condemned +and accursed hole?—die, forgotten and unlamented, before I +have made any mark in the world?”</p> + +</div> + +<div class='pbb'> + <hr class='pb c001'> +</div> +<div> + +<div> + <h2 class='c003'><a id='chapter-II'></a>CHAPTER II.<br> <br><span class='fss'>THE MAN.</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>While Mr. Lowther went to eat his dinner with the hospitable +magistrate, Francis Tredethlyn did his work briskly; folding his +master’s coats and waistcoats, brushing boots, clearing away +little heaps of cigar-ash, and picking up torn scraps of paper +and open books cast recklessly upon the floor by a reader who +was too badly disposed towards a world that had ill-treated him +to find the opinions of any author entirely to his taste.</p> + +<p class='c008'>The soldier whistled that lively melody in praise of Erin’s +daughters all the time, and achieved his task with the rapid +neatness of a male Cinderella specially endowed by some fairy +godmother; and when Mr. Lowther’s humble sitting-room and +bed-room were restored to perfect order, his valet retired to his +own little apartment, which was a shed-like chamber at the +back of the cottage, and a kind of compromise between a dressing-room +and a wash-house. Here Mr. Tredethlyn made his +toilet, which consisted of a rapid plunge of his head and throat +into a tub of cold water, some brisk operations with a cake of +yellow soap, accompanied by sputtering and whizzing noises of +an alarming character, a little fierce rubbing down with a coarse +<span class='pageno' id='Page_12'>12</span>towel, and the smart application of a stiff and implacable-looking +hair-brush. When this was done, Francis Tredethlyn put on +his jacket, and went out into the garden to smoke his pipe and +converse with the convicts.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Now that the gifts of nature had been enhanced by the +adornments of art, the ensign’s valet was by no means a bad-looking +fellow. He was tall, broad-shouldered, and muscular in +build as a modern Hercules. His closely cut black hair revealed +the outline of a well-shaped head well placed upon his shoulders. +Under his dark, almost gipsy-brown, skin was a rich crimson +glow, which deepened or faded under the influence of any +powerful emotion. His nose was straight, but rather short, and +of no particular type; but a sculptor would have told you there +was a special beauty about the curve of his full open nostrils, +and Honoré de Balzac would have informed you that a man with +that kind of nostril is generally good for something in this +world. His forehead was low, stronger in the perceptive than +in the reflective organs; his eyes were of a clear grey, darkened +by the shadow of thick black lashes. He was a handsome +soldier; he would have made a handsome gladiator in the old +Roman days; a noble-looking brigand, in the days when brigands +were chivalrous; a dashing highwayman, in the age when Claude +Duval rode gaily to his death on Tyburn tree; a glorious sporting +farmer down in Leicestershire to-day; but no power upon +this earth could have transformed him into an elegant West-end +lounger, an accomplished dawdler in fashionable drawing-rooms, +or a “gentleman” in the modern acceptation of the word.</p> + +<p class='c008'>He went out into the garden now, to smoke his pipe of bird’s-eye +and talk to the convict gardeners, who brightened at his +approach, and deliberately planted themselves in a convenient +position upon their spades, in order to converse with him. I +am sorry to say that he was as much at home in their society as +if they had been the most estimable of mankind, and that he +encouraged them to talk freely of their burglarious experiences +in the Old World. Was there not a smack of brigandage and +adventure in these experiences, and even a dash of chivalry, +according to the two men’s own showing? for they told stories of +encounters in which they shone out quite with heroic lustre +from their rooted objection to cut an elderly lady’s throat, and +their gallant bearing towards a high-minded young damsel who +had led them from room to room in her father’s mansion, and +had pointed with her own fair hands to the whereabouts of the +family valuables. Francis Tredethlyn sat upon the trunk of a +fallen acacia, watching the lazy clouds in the still evening sky, +and smoking his pipe, long after the two convicts had struck +work and retired to their own quarters. He sat smoking and +musing; thinking, as I suppose a man so banished must think, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_13'>13</span>of that other far-away world which he had left behind him; and +which it seemed to him sometimes, in such still moments as +these, that he should never see again.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“So far away, so very far away!” he mused. “I wonder how +the little village street upon the hill is looking now? It’s winter +time now there, or getting towards winter time anyhow. I can +fancy it of an evening, with the lights twinkling in the low shop +windows, the big castle-gate frowning down upon the poor little +street; the churchyard, where Susy and I have played, all dark +and lonesome in the winter night; and Susy herself—pretty +little dark-eyed Susy—sitting by the hearth in the big kitchen +at Tredethlyn, stitch, stitch, stitch, while the old man nods and +snores over his newspaper. Poor little Susy, what a hard life it +is for her; and the old man as rich as that king of somewhere—Crœsus, +don’t they call him?—if his neighbours are to be +believed. Poor little Susy! is she fond of me, I wonder? and +will she be pleased to marry me, if ever I’m able to go back, and +say, ‘Susy, the best I could do, after running away and ’listing, +was to save up money to buy my discharge, so that I might +come home again to claim the old promise—for better for worse, +for richer or poorer’? We couldn’t well be poorer than we +should be just at first; for, of course, the old chap would turn +rusty, and cut Susy off with a shilling; but who cares for that?” +thought Francis Tredethlyn, snapping his fingers in the independence +of his spirit. “If Susy loves me, and I love Susy, +and we’re both young and strong and industrious, what’s to prevent +us getting on in the world, without anybody’s money to +help us?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>The soldier smoked another pipe in a dreamy reverie, in which +his thoughts still hovered about one familiar spot in his native +country—a long, low, stone-built farmhouse, standing alone +upon a broad plateau of bare moorland, very dreary of aspect in +winter,—a dismal, ghastly-looking homestead, in which the +ornamental had been sacrificed to the useful,—a gaunt, naked-looking +dwelling-place, upon whose decoration or improvement +a ten-pound note had not been expended within the memory of +man,—a house which had gone down through three generations +of close-fisted, cross-grained owners, and which had grown +uglier and drearier under the rule of each generation.</p> + +<p class='c008'>This was the habitation which stood as clearly out against the +vague background of Francis Tredethlyn’s dreams as if it had +been palpably present upon the rising ground on the other side +of the bay. This was the house; and in the low narrow doorway, +fronting the desolate expanse of stunted brown grass, the +soldier saw the slender figure of a girl—a girl with dark, gentle +eyes, and a quaker-like dress of coarse brown stuff,—a girl who +stood with her hand shading her eyes, looking at the distant +<span class='pageno' id='Page_14'>14</span>figure of an old man plodding homeward in the winter twilight. +He had so often seen her thus, that it was only natural the +picture of her should present itself to his mind to-night, as his +thoughts wandered homeward. He was so far away from this +girl and the familiar place in which she lived, that it seemed +almost impossible to him that he could ever see her again, or +tread the well-known pathways along which he had so often +walked by her side. He thought of her almost as the dead may +think of the living—if they do think of us.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Poor little Susy! I wonder whether she loved me—whether +she loves me still? I wasn’t like some of your lovers,—I wasn’t +one of your desperate fellows. I had no hot fits, or cold fits, or +jealous fits, or such like, and there are some folks that might say +I was never in love at all. But I was very fond of Susy—poor +little tender-hearted Susy! I used to think of her, somehow, as +if she had been my little sister. I think of her like that now.”</p> + +</div> + +<div class='pbb'> + <hr class='pb c001'> +</div> +<div> + +<div> + <h2 class='c003'><a id='chapter-III'></a>CHAPTER III.<br> <br><span class='fss'>TIDINGS OF HOME.</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>It was late when Mr. Lowther came home from his friend the +magistrate’s. The faint flush that lighted up his face, and the +unwonted lustre of his eyes, bore testimony to the merits of +Mr. Corbett’s tawny port. All Sandemann’s choicest vintages +would not have tempted Harcourt Lowther to sit listening to a +prosy old magistrate’s civil-service experiences, in Europe; but +on this side of the world a bottle of good wine and a tolerably +civilised companion were not entirely to be despised. The ensign +was in a very good temper when he came into the little parlour, +where a swinging lamp burned brightly, and where a tobacco-jar, +a meerschaum, a case-bottle of Schiedam, a tumbler, and a +jug of water, were set upon the table ready for the master of +the domain. Mr. Lowther was in excellent temper, and inclined +to be especially civil to his valet.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“No Schiedam to-night, Tredethlyn,” he said, throwing himself +into the wicker easy-chair, and stretching his feet upon a +smaller chair that stood opposite to him; “I’ve had a little too +much of that old fellow’s port. Devilish good stuff it is too, +if it hadn’t a tendency to spoil a man’s complexion, and concentrate +itself in his nose. I’ll take a pipe, though. Just give +me a light, will you, Tredethlyn?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>He sat in a lazy attitude, with his head thrown back against +the rail of the chair, and daintily arranged the stray shreds of +tobacco in the bowl of his pipe with the delicate tip of his little +finger; while the private lighted a long strip of folded paper +and handed it to his master.</p> + +<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_15'>15</span>“Oh, by the bye,” muttered Mr. Lowther, speaking with his +mouth shut upon the amber mouthpiece of his pipe, “I’ve got +some news for you, Tredethlyn. Just put your hand in my +coat-pocket, and take out the paper you’ll find there. Goodness +knows what it means,—a legacy of fifty pounds or so, I suppose. +Anyhow, you’re a lucky devil. I should be glad enough to get +even such a windfall as that; but I never hear of anything to +my advantage.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Francis Tredethlyn had taken the paper from his master’s +pocket by this time; it was an old copy of the “Times;” and +he presented it to the ensign, but the other pushed it away +impatiently.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“<em>I</em> don’t want it,” he said; “I think I read every line of it +while old Corbett was snoring after dinner. Look at the third +advertisement in the second column of the Supplement.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>The soldier did as he was directed, and read the advertisement +aloud very slowly and in a tone of unmitigated wonder.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Francis Tredethlyn, nephew of the late Oliver Tredethlyn, +of Tredethlyn Grange, near Landresdale, Cornwall. If the +above-mentioned will apply to Messrs. Krusdale and Scardon, +solicitors, 29, Verulam Buildings, Gray’s Inn, he will hear of +something to his advantage.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“The late Oliver Tredethlyn!” cried Francis, staring blankly +at the paper; “my uncle’s dead, then!”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Was he alive when you left England?” asked the ensign.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“He was alive when I left Cornwall. Dead! my uncle +Oliver?” the young man said, in a dreamy voice; “and I +pictured him to-night in my fancy, plodding home from the +outlying lands, as hale and stern and sturdy as ever. Dead! +and he may have been dead ever so long, for all this tells me,” +added Francis Tredethlyn, pointing to the advertisement.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“You were uncommonly fond of your uncle, I suppose, from +the way you talk of him,” Mr. Lowther remarked, carelessly. +He was in good humour to-night, and ready to talk about anything,—inclined +to take almost an interest in the affairs of +another man, and that man his valet!</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Fond of him!” exclaimed Francis Tredethlyn, “fond of +my uncle Oliver! I don’t think the creature ever lived that +was fond of him, or whose love he’d have cared to have. He +liked folks to obey him, and cut things as close as he wanted ’em +cut; but beyond that, he didn’t care what they thought or +what they did. I suppose he did love his daughter though, after +a fashion, but it was a very hard fashion. No, sir, I wasn’t particularly +fond of my uncle Oliver Tredethlyn, but I’m struck all +of a heap by the news of his death coming upon me so sudden; +and I’m thinking of the effect that it will have on my cousin +Susy,—she’s all alone in the world now,—poor little Susy!”</p> + +<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_16'>16</span>The ensign looked up quickly. “Susy!” he said, “who the +deuce is your cousin Susy?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“She’s my uncle Oliver’s only daughter, sir; <a id='tn-onlychild'></a>his only child, +too, for the matter of that. We were engaged to be married, +sir; but things went wrong with me at home, and I ran away +and enlisted.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Ah! How long ago did all that happen?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Nearly five years, sir.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“And you’ve kept up some sort of a correspondence with +your cousin since then, I suppose?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Not I, sir; her father wasn’t the man to let her write a +letter that would cost a lump of money for postage, or to write +any letter to such a scamp as me, either; and poor Susy was +too close watched, and too obedient into the bargain, to write +without his leave. <em>I’ve</em> written to her now and then, but I’ve +had no news from home since the day I left it, except this that +you’ve brought me to-night.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“And I suppose your uncle has left you a legacy?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I suppose so, sir; it isn’t likely to be much anyhow, for I +never was any great favourite of his.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“You’d better write to these lawyers, though. There’s a +mail to-morrow; <a id='tn-writeatonce'></a>bring out your desk, and write at once.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Here, sir?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Yes, here.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Francis Tredethlyn hesitated for a moment, but seeing that +his master was resolute, he brought a clumsy old-fashioned +mahogany desk from his chamber at the back of the cottage, +and seated himself at a corner of the table with the desk before +him. He had placed himself at a very respectful distance from +Mr. Harcourt Lowther; but that gentleman, having finished +his pipe, got up, and began to walk slowly up and down the +room, while his valet squared his elbows and commenced a laborious +inscription of his address at the top of the page.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Tell them that you are Francis Tredethlyn, nephew of +Oliver Tredethlyn, and that you can bring forward plenty of +witnesses to prove your identity, and so on, as soon as you can +get back to England. I don’t suppose they’ll let you have your +legacy till they see you. Ask them to tell you what the amount +is, at any rate.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Mr. Lowther did not confine himself to giving his valet these +hints upon the composition of his letter; he was good enough to +stand behind the young man’s chair, and look over his shoulder +as he wrote; but as Francis Tredethlyn’s penmanship was not +of a very rapid order, the ensign’s eyes soon wandered from the +page, and straying to an open division of the desk, lighted on +something that looked like a water-coloured sketch, covered with +silver paper.</p> + +<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_17'>17</span>“Why, you sly dog,” he cried with a laugh, “you’ve got a +woman’s picture in your desk!”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Francis Tredethlyn blushed and looked very sheepish as he +took the little water-coloured sketch out of its silver-paper envelope +and handed it submissively to his master.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“It’s my cousin Susan’s portrait, sir,” he said; “it was +taken by a travelling artist, who came down our way one summer. +It isn’t much of a likeness, but it pleases me to look at it +sometimes, for I can fill up all that’s wanting in the face out of +my own mind, and see my cousin smiling at me, as if I was at +home again.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Mr. Lowther stood behind his servant’s chair looking at the +portrait, while the soldier went on writing. It was not the work +of a very brilliant artist; there was none of those deliciously +careless touches, none of that transparent lightness, which a +clever painter’s manipulation would have displayed. It was a +stiff, laborious little portrait of a girl with hazel brown eyes and +smooth banded brown hair, and an innocent childish mouth, +rosy and fresh and smiling as a summer’s morning in the +country. It was only the picture of a country girl, who seemed +to have looked shyly at the artist as he painted her.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“So that’s your cousin Susy,” said Mr. Lowther, laying the +picture down upon the table by Tredethlyn’s elbow. “I shan’t +stop while you address your letter, and I don’t want any thing +more, so you can go to bed at once if you like. Good night.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>The ensign took a candle from a little side-table as he spoke, +lighted it at the lamp above Tredethlyn’s head, and went out of +the room. Francis finished his letter, and placed it on the +mantelpiece, where some letters of his master’s were lying ready +for the next day’s mail. He did not go to bed at once, though +it was late, and he was free to do so, but sat for some time with +his cousin Susan Tredethlyn’s portrait in his hand, looking at +the girlish face, and thinking of the changes that had come to +pass in his old home.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“The old chap was hard and stern with her, and her life was +a dull one, poor little girl,” thought the soldier; “and she’ll +have a fine fortune, I suppose, now he’s gone; but somehow I +don’t like to think of her left lonely in the world; she’s too +young and too pretty, and too innocent for that. Innocent! +why, bless her poor tender little heart, I don’t think she knows +there’s such a thing as wickedness upon this earth.”</p> + +</div> + +<div class='pbb'> + <hr class='pb c001'> +</div> +<div> + +<div> + <h2 class='c003'><a id='chapter-IV'></a>CHAPTER IV.<br> <br><span class='fss'>TREDETHLYN’S LUCK.</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>Francis Tredethlyn had to wait a very long time before there +could be any possibility of a letter from the Gray’s Inn solicitors, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_18'>18</span>but he endured the delay with perfect tranquillity of mind; and +if either of the two men seemed anxious for the arrival of the +letter, that man was Harcourt Lowther, and not Francis Tredethlyn. +The ensign had a trick of alluding to his servant’s good +fortune whenever things went especially ill with himself.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Here am I without a friend in the world to lend me a five-pound +note,” he would remark, impatiently, “and there are you +with a chance of a nice little legacy from that old uncle of yours. +I shouldn’t wonder if you stand in for four or five hundred at +the least.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I don’t think it, sir,” the valet always answered, coolly. +“I’ve heard our neighbours say, that what with farming, what +with mining, and dabbling a good bit with funds and railway +shares, and such-like, my uncle must be as rich as a Jew; but +for all that, I don’t look to be much better off for any thing that +he’ll have left me. I suppose he’s left every thing to my cousin +Susan, seeing that he had neither kith nor kin except her and +me. But somehow or other I can’t imagine his parting with his +money to any one, even after his death. I almost fancy that +he’d rather have tied it up, if he could, so that the interest upon +it would go on accumulating for ever and ever, thinking as he +might perhaps, being old and eccentric, that he’d have a kind of +satisfaction, even in his grave, from knowing that the money +was going on getting more and more, instead of being spent or +squandered.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Francis Tredethlyn did not make this remark in any spirit of +ill-nature; he spoke like a man who states a plain fact.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I dare say he was a regular old curmudgeon,” Mr. Lowther +answered, “but he must leave his money to some one, and the +fact of these lawyers advertising for you is ample proof that he +must have left some of it to you.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Such a conversation as this occurred pretty frequently during +the long interval in which Francis Tredethlyn waited for the +answer to his letter. Sometimes, when Harcourt Lowther was +in a very bad temper, he would accuse his attendant of having +grown proud and insolent and lazy, since the advent of that +<cite>Times</cite> newspaper, which the ensign had borrowed from Mr. +Corbett; but every one of the accusations was as groundless as +many other of the officer’s complaints against people and things +in general. There was no change in Francis Tredethlyn: he +did his work cheerfully and well, obeyed orders in a frank, +manly spirit, and behaved himself altogether in a most exemplary +manner.</p> + +<p class='c008'>The time when a letter from England might be expected came +round at last; but Francis Tredethlyn evinced no anxiety for +the arrival of the solicitors’ epistle. A long season of drought +had given way before a sudden downfall of rain, and Harcourt +<span class='pageno' id='Page_19'>19</span>Lowther, who had planned a couple of days’ kangaroo hunting, +and had made all necessary arrangements for the performance +of his duties by a good-natured and efficient colour-sergeant, +found himself a prisoner in his cottage at Port Arthur, with +nothing to do but wait for a change in the weather.</p> + +<p class='c008'>It was very tiresome. The accomplished, light-hearted Harcourt +Lowther, who could take life so pleasantly in the drawing-rooms +of Tyburnia or Belgravia, to whom a summer afternoon +amongst a group of fashionable gossips in the smoking-room of +his favourite club was only too short, found this terrible Tasmanian +day intolerably long. He had tried every available way of +getting rid of his time. He had sketched a little, and read a +little, and played the flute a little, and smoked a great deal, and +had relieved the oppression of his spirits by an incalculable +number of yawns, and a little occasional bad language. And +now, having exhausted all these resources, he stood with his +head leaning listlessly against the roughly finished sash of the +window, watching the convict labourers at work under the +heavy rain. He derived some faint ray of comfort from the +signs of those two men. At any rate, there were some people in +the world worse off than himself,—unlucky wretches who were +obliged to work in wet weather, and wear a hideous dress, and +eat coarse unpalatable food, or food that appeared abominably +coarse and unpalatable in the eyes of Mr. Harcourt Lowther, +who had been known upon occasion to turn up his nose at the +culinary masterpieces of Soyer and Francatelli.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Why don’t they kill themselves?” muttered the ensign; +“they could drive rusty nails into their veins, and make an end +of themselves somehow. There are plenty of poisonous things +in my garden that they might eat, and make a finish of their +lives that way; but they don’t. They go on day after day +drudging and toiling, and enduring their lives, somehow or other. +I suppose they hope to get away some day. How ever should I +bear my life if I didn’t hope to get away—if I didn’t hope it +would come to an end pretty soon?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Mr. Lowther, having exhausted the pleasure to be derived +from a contemplation of the convicts, took to pacing up and +down the two rooms; in the inner of which Francis Tredethlyn +was busy cleaning his master’s guns.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Walking backwards and forwards, and backwards and forwards, +and passing the valet every time, Harcourt Lowther was +fain to talk to him; rather for the pleasure and relief of hearing +his own voice, than from any desire to be friendly towards his +vassal.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“No letter yet, Tredethlyn?” he said.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“No, sir; but it may come any day.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“And you wait for it as quietly as if a legacy, more or less, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_20'>20</span>was nothing to you. I suppose if they send you a remittance, +you’ll be wanting to buy your discharge, and leave this place; +and I shall have to get another servant,—some awkward, ignorant +boor, perhaps?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I don’t know about that, sir. There’s plenty as good as me, +I dare say, among our fellows. Other folks may have been +brought up respectably, and taken to soldiering, like me. And +as for buying my discharge, I don’t say but I should be glad to +do that, if those lawyer people gave me the chance. I should +be glad to get back to England and see my little cousin Susy. +I always call her little Susy, because I can’t help thinking of +her as she was when I remember her first, when she and I were +boy and girl sweethearts together. I’ve thought of her a deal +since I got the news of her father’s death, and I feel anxious +about her, somehow or other, when I fancy her left alone among +strangers.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Harcourt Lowther, always walking backwards and forwards +between the two rooms, was in the sitting-room when his servant +said this. He stopped to look out of the window again, and +there seemed to be a kind of dismal fascination for him in the +convicts, towards whom his eyes wandered in a moody, absent-minded +stare.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“And where do you expect to find her—your cousin, I mean—when +you do go back to England?” he asked presently.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“At the old farm, sir, to be sure. Where should I find her +but there? Poor little soul! she’s never known any other home +but that, and isn’t likely to leave it in a hurry of her own free +will.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Humph!” muttered the officer, “there’s no calculating upon +the changes that take place in this world. I never expect to find +any thing as I left it when I return to a place or people that I’ve +been absent from for any length of time. I expect to find plenty +of changes when I get back to the civilised world again. Do you +suppose the people <em>there</em> can afford to waste their time thinking +of wretched exiles <em>here</em>? Life with them is utterly different +from what it is with us. When I left England, I was engaged +to a beautiful girl with fifty thousand pounds or so for her fortune,—a +girl who would have married me, and given me a grand +start in life, if it hadn’t been for her father; but do you think I +expect to find her in the same mind when I go back? Do you +think two years’ absence won’t act as a sponge, and wipe <em>my</em> +image out of her thoughts? What has a beautiful, frivolous +creature like that to do with constancy? Every man who looks +at her falls over head and ears in love with her. She is fed upon +flattery and adulation. Is it probable, or natural, or even +possible that she will remember <em>me</em>?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>It was not likely that Mr. Lowther would ask this question of +<span class='pageno' id='Page_21'>21</span>his valet. He asked it of himself, rather, in a peevish and complaining +spirit, and seemed to find a dismal comfort in harping +on his wrongs and his miseries.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I was a fool to think that Maude Hillary could be constant +to me!” he muttered, angrily. In his anger against a world +that had treated him so badly, he was angry with himself for +having been so much a fool as to expect better treatment. He +walked to a little looking-glass hanging over the mantelpiece, +and looked at his handsome face. Was it the face of a man who +was to have no place in the world? Were his many graces of +person, his charm of manner, his versatility of mind, to serve for +nothing after all?</p> + +<p class='c008'>“When I think of the fellows who get on in the world, I feel +inclined to make an end of all this by cutting my throat,” he +said, as he frowned at the image in the glass.</p> + +<p class='c008'>He felt the region of the jugular vein softly with the ends of +his fingers as he spoke, and wondered whether death by the +severance of that important artery was a very painful finish for +a man to make. He thought of how he might look if Francis +Tredethlyn, finding him late to rise one morning, broke into his +room and saw him lying in the sunny little chamber deluged +with blood and stone dead. He had been very religiously +brought up, amongst gentle, true-hearted women; but there +was no more pious compunction in his mind as he thought of +suicide than there might have been in the mind of an aboriginal +inhabitant of the Solomon Islands. He had a mother at home—a +mother who believed in him and idolized him, to the disparagement +of all other creatures; but no image of her grief +and despair arose between him and the scheme of a desperate +death. His thoughts travelled in a narrow circle, of which self +was the unchanging centre.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I have heard of men making away with themselves on the +very eve of some event which would have made a complete +change in their fortunes,” he thought presently. “I never read +the story of a suicide that did not seem more or less the story of +a fool. No, my death shall never make a paragraph for a newspaper. +I must be very hard pushed when I come to that. This +place gives me the blue-devils, and everything looks black to me +out here. I wish Abel Janz Tasman and Captain Cook had +perished before ever they sighted this dismal land. I wish all +the lot of petty Dutch traders and navigators had come to an +untimely end before ever they discovered any one of these miserable +islands, which have been a paradise for convicts and +scoundrels, and a hell for gentlemen, during the last half-century. +How was I to know, when I bought a commission in +her Majesty’s service, that the first stage on the road to martial +glory was to be the post of head-gaoler at a settlement in the +<span class='pageno' id='Page_22'>22</span>Antipodes? The papers talk of a change in the transportation +system, a change that will rid Van Diemen’s Land of its present +delightful inhabitants; but no change is likely to come about in +my time. I shall have to drag my chain out to the last link, I +dare say. It’s better to be born lucky than rich, says the proverb; +but how about the poor devils who are neither rich nor +lucky?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>A rap on the little door, that opened out of the sitting-room +on to a patch of garden which lay between the house and the +high road, startled Mr. Lowther out of his long reverie.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“It’s the fellow with the letters,” he cried; and before +Francis Tredethlyn could emerge from the inner room, his master +had opened the door, and had taken a little packet of letters, +newspapers, and magazines from the man who brought them. +“One from my mother; one from—yes—from Maude, at last; +the <cite>Times</cite>, <cite>Punch</cite>, <cite>Blackwood’s</cite>, <cite>United Service</cite>, and <a id='tn-esqeh'></a>the lawyer’s +letter!—‘Francis Tredethlyn, Esq.!’ eh? The legacy must +be something more than five hundred, my man, or they’d hardly +dub you Esquire.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>He tossed the letter over to his servant as he spoke, and +looked at the Cornishman furtively, with something like envy +expressed in his look. Francis Tredethlyn received the lawyers’ +epistle very coolly, and retired into the adjoining room to read +it, while his master sat at the table in the parlour, tearing off +the flimsy envelope of a letter with a hasty nervous hand.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“From Maude!” he muttered. “At last, my lady: at last, +at last!”</p> + +<p class='c008'>The letter was a very long one, written in a clear and bold +yet sufficiently feminine hand, on slippery pink paper scented +with a perfume that had survived an Australian voyage. The +contents of the letter must have been tolerably pleasing to +Harcourt Lowther, for he smiled as he read, and seemed to +forget all about Francis Tredethlyn’s legacy.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I miss you very much, though papa surrounds us with +gaiety; indeed, I think we have been gayer than ever lately; +and he never seems so happy as when our dear old lawn is +crowded with visitors. But I miss you, Harcourt, in spite of +all the cruel insinuations in your last letter. The summer +evenings seem long and dreary when I think of you, so far +away, so unhappy, as your letters tell me you are, Harcourt, +though you are too unselfish to admit the truth in plain words. +I scarcely open the piano once in a month, now that I have no +one to play concertante duets. I scarcely care for a new opera; +for the men who come into our box bore me to death with their +vapid talk, and I know that not one of them understands what +he talks about. I am not happy, Harcourt, though you taunt +me with my wealth and my position, and the difference between +<span class='pageno' id='Page_23'>23</span>our lives. I am not happy, for our future seems to grow darker +and darker every day. I have mentioned you to my father +several times, and every time he seems more angry than the +last; so now I feel that your name is tacitly tabooed; and any +chance allusion to you from the lips of strangers makes me +tremble and turn cold. I have tried in vain to comprehend the +reason of my father’s aversion to any thought of a marriage +between you and me. I have been so much a spoiled child, that +to be thwarted or opposed on any subject seems strange to me, +most of all when that subject is so near my heart. I can +scarcely think that my dear father would allow any consideration +of fortune to stand in the way of happiness, and yet that is the +only consideration that can influence him, for I know that he +always liked and admired you. You must awhile be patient: +what I can do I will. And you must trust me, dear Harcourt, +and not pain me again as you have pained me by those unkind +doubts of my constancy. You know that money has never +been any consideration with me; and you ought to know that I +would willingly lose every penny of my fortune rather than +sacrifice my promise to you.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“O yes; that’s all very well!” muttered Mr. Lowther +peevishly, after having read this part of Miss Hillary’s epistle +twice over; “but Lionel Hillary’s daughter with fifty thousand +pounds or so, and without a penny, are two very different +people. Not but what she’s always a beautiful girl and a +charming girl; but a man can have his pick of charming and +beautiful girls, if <em>that’s</em> all he wants to set him up in life. I +love her, Heaven knows; and the sight of her writing sends a +thrill through my veins like the touch of her hand, or the fluttering +of her breath upon my cheek. But poverty makes a man +practical, and I think I never read a letter that had less of the +practical in it than this letter. It’s a woman’s epistle all over. +We must be patient, and wait till we’re worn out by waiting, +and the engagement between us becomes a chain that binds us +both from better things, and the sound of each other’s name +becomes a nuisance to us from its associations of trouble and +responsibility. That’s what a long engagement generally comes +to. If I’d distinguished myself in India, led a desperate charge +against orders, or taken the gate of an Affghan fortress, or done +something reckless and mad-headed and lucky, and could have +gone back with a captaincy, and a dash of newspaper celebrity +about my name, I might have hoped that old Hillary, in a +moment of maudlin after-dinner generosity, would have given +his consent to my marriage with Maude. But how am I to +present myself at Twickenham, and say, ‘I have been taking +care of convicts for the last two years,—not particularly well, +for more convicts have escaped into the bush in my time than in +<span class='pageno' id='Page_24'>24</span>any other man’s time, according to the reports,—and I have +come back to England with the same rank that I had when I +left, and with less money than I took away with me’? Can I +go to Lionel Hillary and say that? Is that the sort of argument +which will induce a man to give me his daughter and her +fortune?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>He went back to Miss Hillary’s letter. It was only a frivolous +letter, after all; and it contained more intelligence about a +morning concert in Hanover Square, a regatta at Ryde, and a +preternaturally sagacious Skye-terrier, than was likely to be +gratifying to a discontented exile at Port Arthur. But Mr. +Lowther was fain to content himself as he might with the pretty +girlish gossip. It was something, after all his grumbling, to +receive the assurance that he was not entirely forgotten by the +only daughter and sole heiress of one of the richest merchants +in the city of London.</p> + +<p class='c008'>He looked up presently from his letter, to see Francis Tredethlyn +standing in the doorway between the two rooms, pale +to the lips, and clutching at his throat as if he had some difficulty +in breathing.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“What’s the matter, man?” asked the ensign; “hasn’t the +old chap left you any money, after all?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“It isn’t that, sir,” gasped the soldier; “there’s money +enough and to spare. It’s my cousin Susy; that poor little +innocent creature, that was as pure as the apple-blossoms on +the gnarled old trees in the orchard when I left home. She’s +done something, sir—something that turned her father against +her. She’s gone away, sir, and no one knows where she’s gone, +or what’s come of her, or whether she’s dead or alive. And +her father disinherited her, poor lost lamb; and—that’ll tell +you all about the fortune, sir, if you want to know about it.” +Francis Tredethlyn threw the lawyer’s letter upon the table +before his master, and walked away to the window—the same +window at which the ensign had stood looking out at the convicts +half an hour before.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Harcourt Lowther read the lawyer’s letter, at first with a +listless, indifferent air, and then as eagerly as if he had been +reading his own death-warrant. It was a long letter, worded in +a very formal manner, but it set forth the fact that the fortune +left by Oliver Tredethlyn to his nephew Francis amounted to +something over thirty thousand a year.</p> + +<p class='c008'>For some minutes after this fact had been made clear to him +Harcourt Lowther sat with the open letter before him, staring +at the lines. Then suddenly the blank stupor upon his face +gave way to a look of despair. The ensign flung his head and +arms upon the table, and burst into tears.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I have been eating my own heart in this place for nearly +<span class='pageno' id='Page_25'>25</span>two years,” he sobbed, “and not one ray of light—no, by the +heaven above me! not one—has dawned upon my life; and a +valet, a private soldier, the fellow who scours my rooms and +blacks my boots, has thirty thousand a year left him!”</p> + +<p class='c008'>There was something so terrible in this hysterical outburst of +rage and envy, something so utterly piteous in this unmanly +revolt against another man’s good fortune, that Francis Tredethlyn +forgot his own trouble before the aspect of his master’s +degradation.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Don’t, sir,” he cried, “for God’s sake, don’t do that! All +the riches in the world wouldn’t pay a man for taking on like +that. If you want money, you’re welcome to borrow some of +mine as soon as ever I get the power to lend it. There’s more +than I care to have, or could ever spend. You’ll be welcome to +what you want, Mr. Lowther. I don’t set much account upon +money, and I don’t think I ever shall; and the thoughts of +this fortune don’t give me half the pleasure I’ve felt in the gift +of a crown-piece long ago, when I was a little lad. I suppose +it was because I thought then there was nothing in all the +world that five shillings wouldn’t buy, and because I’m wiser +now, and know there are some things a million of money can’t +purchase. The news of this money has brought the thoughts +of my father and my mother back to me, Mr. Lowther. I’d +give every sixpence of it, if it could bring back the past, and +pay out the bailiff’s man that was sitting by our kitchen-fire at +home when my mother lay ill up-stairs. But it can’t do that. +My father and mother both died poor, and all this money +can’t buy back one of the sorrowful days they spent in the old +farm, when things went from bad to worse, and debt and ruin +came down upon us. I don’t seem to care for the money, Mr. +Lowther; I am dazed and bewildered, somehow, by the greatness +of the sum, but I don’t seem to care.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>The ensign had calmed himself by this time. He got up and +brushed the tears from his eyes, real tears of rage, envy, mortification, +and despair. There was a faint blush upon his face, +the one evidence of his shame which he could not suppress in a +moment, but all other evidences of feeling had passed away.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“You’re a good fellow, Tredethlyn,” he said, “an excellent +simple-hearted fellow; as simple-hearted as a baby,—for who +but a baby ever talked as you talk about this money? and I +congratulate you upon your good luck. I see these lawyer fellows +send you a bill for a couple of hundred; that’ll buy you +off here pleasantly, and get you back to England. My advice +to you is to get back as fast as ever you can, and enter into +possession of your property. It seems a complicated kind of +estate from what I can make out—mining property, and agricultural +property, and shares in half the speculations of modern +<span class='pageno' id='Page_26'>26</span>times,—but it’s a great estate, and that’s all you want to know. +Go back; and as soon as ever I can get away from this accursed +hole, I’ll look you up in London; and I—I <em>will</em> borrow a little +of that money you generously offer, and I’ll turn bear leader, +and show you what life is in the upper circle, to which thirty +thousand a year is the universal ‘open sesame.’”</p> + +<p class='c008'>The ensign slapped his hand upon his servant’s shoulder with +a jovial air, and spoke almost as gaily as if Oliver Tredethlyn’s +fortune was to be in some way or other a stroke of good luck +for himself.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Thank you, sir,” Francis answered, thoughtfully, “you’re +very good; but I don’t care to force myself in among grand +folks because I’m rich enough to do as they do. I’ve got a task +before me, and it may be a long one.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“A task!”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Yes; I’ve got to look for my cousin.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Your cousin, Susan Tredethlyn!—the girl whose portrait +you showed me?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Yes, sir. All this money would have been hers, most likely, +if she hadn’t done something to turn my uncle against her. I +can’t forget that, you see, sir; and the first use I make of the +money will be to spend some of it in looking after her.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Susan Tredethlyn,” muttered Harcourt Lowther,—“Susan +Tredethlyn. That portrait you showed me was a very bad one, +for I haven’t the least notion of what your cousin is like.”</p> + +</div> + +<div class='pbb'> + <hr class='pb c001'> +</div> +<div> + +<div> + <h2 class='c003'><a id='chapter-V'></a>CHAPTER V.<br> <br><span class='fss'>COMING HOME.</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>When the jaded horses of the “Electric” coach from Falmouth +stopped before the Crown Inn at Landresdale, in the county of +Cornwall, on the 13th of July, 1852, the landlord of the little +hostelry was somewhat startled by an event which was of very +rare occurrence in those parts. A passenger alighted from the +back of the coach, and demanded his portmanteau from the +guard,—a passenger who, carrying his portmanteau as easily as +if it had been a parcel of flimsy milliner’s ware, walked straight +to the little private parlour opposite the bar, and ensconced +himself therein.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I shall want my dinner, and a bed, Joseph Penruffin,” he +said to the proprietor of the Crown. “You’d better see the +coach off, and then you can come and talk to me.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Mr. Penruffin retired aghast and staring.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I don’t know who he <em>is</em>, Sarah,” he remarked to a comely-looking +woman, who was sitting amongst a noble array of +shelves and bottles in a shady little bar that seemed a good deal +<span class='pageno' id='Page_27'>27</span>too small for such a portly presence. “His name’s as clean +gone out of my mind as if I’d never set eyes upon him; but I +know him, and he knows me, Sarah, for he called me by my +name as glib as you please, and his face—Lord bless us and +save us!—his face is as familiar to me as yourn.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>The passenger who had surprised the Crown Inn from its lazy +tranquillity stood at the little window looking out at the coach. +The passenger was Francis Tredethlyn, lately a foot-soldier in +her Majesty’s service, now a gentleman of landed estate and +funded property; but very little changed by the change in his +fortune. As he had been independent and fearless in the days +when he ruled his life by the orders of other men, so was he +simple and unpretending now in the hour of his sudden prosperity. +What he had said to his master in the cottage at Port +Arthur in the first flush of his new fortunes appeared to be +equally true of him now. He did not seem to care about his +wealth. He was in no way elated by a change of fortune which +would have sent some men into a madhouse.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“It seems to me, somehow, as if there was a kind of balance +kept up in this world between good and evil, like the debtor and +creditor sides of a ledger. I put down my uncle Oliver’s fortune +on one side, and it looks as if I was the luckiest fellow in +Christendom. But there’s the loss of poor little Susy must go +down on the other side, and then the book looks altogether +different. The loss of her—yes, the loss—that’s the word! If +the earth had opened and swallowed her up, she couldn’t seem +more lost to me than she is.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>The passengers of the “Electric” had recruited themselves +by this time, and a fresh pair of horses had replaced the tired +animals who now stood steaming in the great stable-yard. The +coach rolled slowly off, along a road that lay straight before the +windows of the Crown—a road that crept under the steep slope +of a thickly wooded hill, defended by an old crumbling wall, +which, even in its decay, was grander and stronger than any +modern wall that ever girdled a modern gentleman’s estate. +The dark-red brick wall, and all the sombre woods above it, belonged +to the Marquis of Landresdale, upon whose mansion and +estate the little town or village of Landresdale was a kind of +dependant, the inhabitants being almost all of them supported +indirectly or directly by the patronage of the great man and +his household. By these simple people the Cornish nobleman +was spoken of with awe and reverence as the “Marquis;” and +that the world held any other creature with a claim to that title +was a fact utterly ignored—it may be, even discredited—by the +ratepayers of Landresdale. Under the shadow of Landresdale +House they were born and lived; and in a church which was +only a kind of mausoleum for the departed nobles and dames of +<span class='pageno' id='Page_28'>28</span>the house of Landresdale they worshipped every sabbath-day, +until in the minds of some hero-worshippers, the figure of the +Marquis grew into a giant shape that blotted out all the world +beyond Landresdale.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“How familiar the old place seems to me, and yet how +strange!” thought Francis Tredethlyn, as he stood at the window. +“There’s Jim Teascott the cobbler over the way, sitting +in the very same attitude he was in when I stopped at the +corner below to take my last look at Landresdale. But the +street seems as if it had dwindled and shrunk away into half +the size it used to be; and I feel as strange—as strange as if +I’d been dead and buried, and had come to life again after folks +had forgotten all about me; even the very seasons are all wrong, +somehow, to my mind, as they might seem to a man that had +been lying dead ever so long.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Francis Tredethlyn rubbed his broad palm across his forehead, +as if to clear some kind of cloud away from his intellect. It was +scarcely strange that he should be confused and mystified by +the seasons. He had left autumnal clouds and winds in the +Antipodes; and after a hundred days or so at sea, he found a +blazing July sky above his native land, and he felt as if he had, +somehow or other, been cheated out of a winter. He looked +at a little pocket-book, in which he had written some names +and addresses and other memoranda, and in which the initials +“S. T.” occurred very often. Those initials meant Susan Tredethlyn, +and the memoranda in the pocket-book chiefly related +to inquiries which Francis had made about his lost cousin.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Those inquiries had resulted in very little information. The +lawyers had only been able to tell Francis the bare facts relating +to his uncle’s death; how one day, when they least expected +to see the old man, he had suddenly presented himself at their +offices, very pale, very feeble, and with an awful something, +which even they recognized as the sign-manual of the King of +Terrors himself, imprinted on his haggard features: how he had +seated himself quietly in his accustomed place, and had dictated +to them, deliberately and unflinchingly, the terms of a will, by +which he bequeathed every shilling he possessed to his nephew, +Francis Tredethlyn; how, when they, as in duty bound, remonstrated +with him about the injustice that such a will would +inflict upon his only daughter, a hideous frown had distorted +his face, and he had struck his clenched fist upon the office-table, +crying, with the most horrible imprecation ever uttered +in that place, that no penny of his getting should ever go to +save his daughter from rotting in a workhouse or starving to +death on the king’s highway;—he had said this, and in such a +manner as most effectually to put an end to all remonstrance on +the part of his solicitors. This was all that the lawyers could +<span class='pageno' id='Page_29'>29</span>tell Francis Tredethlyn about his cousin Susan; but they had +gone on to tell him how his uncle had insisted on leaving the +office alone and on foot; how he had walked the best part of the +way from Gray’s Inn to an old-fashioned commercial inn in +the Borough, and how he had broken down at last, only a hundred +yards from his destination, and had fainted away on the +threshold of a chemist’s shop, whence he had been carried to +his death-bed. This had happened on the 30th of June in the +preceding year; and this was all that the lawyers had to tell +Francis Tredethlyn, over and above such intelligence as related +only to the extent and nature of the property bequeathed to +him by his late uncle.</p> + +<p class='c008'>But in Landresdale the name of Oliver Tredethlyn was almost +as well known as that of the Marquis himself; and in Landresdale +Francis hoped to learn the true story of his cousin’s fate. +He stood now looking out of the window into the rustic highway, +as quiet in the summer evening calm as if it had been a +street in one of the buried cities of Italy, as peaceful in its +drowsy aspect as if no palpitating human heart had ever carried +its daily burden of care and sorrow along the narrow footways, +beneath the shadow of the peaked roofs and quaint abutting +upper stories. He stood looking out, and remembering himself +a boy in that old hill-side street; he stood there now, wondering +alike at the past and the present, which by contrast seemed +both equally strange and unnatural; he stood there in all the +flush and vigour of his youth, a tall, broad-shouldered, simple-hearted +soldier, with a fortune far exceeding the narrow limits +of his arithmetical powers, as ignorant of all the real world that +lay before him as a little country lad who rides to town upon +the top of a load of hay and expects to find the streets paved +with gold, and the Queen dressed in her crown and robes, and +sitting on her throne with the ball and sceptre in her hands for +ever and ever.</p> + +<p class='c008'>The landlord of the Crown came bustling in presently with a +wooden tray of knives and forks, and glasses and cruets, that +would have amply served for a dinner-party of half-a-dozen. +He laid the cloth with great ceremony, although with a certain +air of briskness inseparable from innkeeping, even in the laziest +and dullest village in all England; and he kept a furtive watch +upon his guest throughout all his operations, from the preparatory +polishing down of the mahogany table, to the final flourish +with which he removed a very large cover from a very small +rumpsteak.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I think I ought to know you, sir,” he said, courteously, as +Francis Tredethlyn seated himself at the table.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I think you ought, Joseph Penruffin; I think you ought +to remember Francis Tredethlyn, son of your old friend John +<span class='pageno' id='Page_30'>30</span>Tredethlyn, of Pen Gorbold, who was a little bit too friendly in +this house, perhaps, for his own prosperity.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Francis Tredethlyn!” cried the landlord, clapping his hand +upon his knee, “Francis Tredethlyn! To be sure it is! To +think that I should forget a face that was once as familiar to +me as my own son’s! Francis Tredethlyn! Why, I remember +you a lad playing cricket on the green yonder with my own +boys. And you’ve come into a very fine fortune, sir, I understand; +and I hope you will excuse the liberty, if I make so bold +as to wish you every happiness with it, Francis Tredethlyn. +Lord bless us and save us! why, I can remember you a little +bit of a toddling child coming into Landresdale Church with +your mother on a summer Sunday morning, as if it was yesterday! +I ask pardon for being so bold and free-like, but the sight +of your face takes me back to old times, and I’m apt to forget +myself.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Mr. Penruffin’s mind was curiously divided between the memories +of the past and his desire to be duly reverential to Francis +Tredethlyn’s new fortunes. The young man smiled as he recognized +the influence of his newly acquired wealth at war with +the associations of his boyhood. He had seen pretty much the +same thing in the office of Messrs. Krusdale and Scardon. He +was beginning already to perceive that an income of thirty +thousand a year made a kind of barrier between himself and +poorer men, and that they regarded him with the same feeling +of mingled reverence and familiarity with which they would have +looked at a very ordinary statue seen across a wonderful screen +of virgin gold.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“And the sight of <em>your</em> face takes <em>me</em> back to old times, Mr. +Penruffin,” he said, with rather a mournful accent, “and I’d +freely give half this great fortune of mine if I could bring back +one of those summer Sunday mornings in the old church, and +see myself a little fellow again, trudging by my mother’s side, +with a green-baize bag of prayer-books on my arm. I’d give five +thousand pounds for a silk-dress I saw in a Plymouth draper’s +fifteen years ago, when I was too poor to do any thing but wish +for it, if my mother were alive to wear it. I used to think, when +I was a lad, of what I’d buy for my mother out of the first five-pound +note I ever earned; and now I’ve got thirty thousand a +year, and there’s nothing upon all this earth that I can buy for +her, except a gravestone to mark the spot where she lies.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Thirty thousand a year!” muttered the landlord, in an +undertone, which had just a tinge of disappointment in it. The +Landresdale people had given their imaginations free play since +the death of Oliver Tredethlyn, and the old man’s fortune had +swelled into almost fabulous proportions with the lapse of time; +so thirty thousand didn’t seem so very much, after all. There +<span class='pageno' id='Page_31'>31</span>had been an idea in Landresdale that Francis Tredethlyn would +most likely buy up the Marquis’s estate off-hand, and if practicable +make a handsome offer for the purchase of the title.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I am sure, sir, your feelings do you credit,” said Mr. Penruffin, +after that brief sense of disappointment; “I may say +very great credit,” he added, with emphasis,—as if any display +of feeling from the possessor of thirty thousand a year were +specially meritorious. “I suppose you have come down this +way to survey your property, sir; to look about you a little, +eh?” inquired the landlord of the Crown, when Francis had +finished his frugal dinner.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Not I,” the young man answered; “I scarcely know what +my property is yet, though the lawyers told me a long rigmarole +about it. No, I’ve come on a very different errand,” he added +gravely. “You remember my cousin, Susan Tredethlyn, I +dare say? I have come to look for her.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Joseph Penruffin shook his head solemnly, and breathed a +long sigh that was almost a groan.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“If that’s your errand here, sir, I’m afraid it isn’t likely to be +a very fortunate one. Folks in Landresdale never expect to see +Susan Tredethlyn again; she went away from the farm four +years ago; no one knows exactly where she went; no one knows +why she went. There’s your uncle’s old servants, Mr. Tredethlyn, +of course they <em>might</em> have said something, if they’d liked to it. +But you may as well go and question the tombstones in Landresdale +churchyard as question <em>them</em>. All I know, or all anybody +knows in this place is, that your cousin Susan went away +and never came back again; and it stands to reason that she +must have done something very bad indeed, and made her father +very desperate against her, before the old man would have gone +and left all his money away from her—meaning no disrespect to +you, sir, but only looking at it in the light of human nature in +general,” added the landlord, apologetically.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I’ll never believe that Susan Tredethlyn did any thing +wicked or unwomanly till her own lips tell me so,” cried Francis, +bringing his hand heavily down on the table. “She may have +made my uncle desperate against her, <em>that’s</em> likely enough, for +he was always hard with her; and when I think of his having +hoarded all this money, and remember the life my cousin Susan +used to lead, I can scarcely bring myself to believe that she was +his own flesh and blood. I’ll never believe that she did any +thing wrong. I’ll never believe that she could grow to be any +thing different from what she was when I left home,—an innocent, +modest little creature, who was almost frightened of her +own pretty looks when she caught a sight of herself in a glass. +But I’m going up to the old house; and if Martha Dryscoll or +her husband know any thing of my lost cousin, I’ll get the +<span class='pageno' id='Page_32'>32</span>knowledge from them, though I have to wring it out of their +wizened old throats.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>The young man rose as he said this, and took his hat and +stick from a chair near the window. Joseph Penruffin watched +him with something like alarm upon his countenance.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“You’ll sleep here to-night, sir?” he asked.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Yes; I’m going straight up to the Grange, and I don’t +know how long I may be gone; but I’ll come back here to sleep. +I should scarcely fancy lying down in one of those dreary old +rooms; I should expect to see the wandering spirit of my lost +cousin come and look in at me from the darkness outside my +window. No; however late I may be, I’ll come back here to +sleep.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“And perhaps you’d like some little trifle for supper, sir, having +made such an uncommon poor dinner,” suggested the landlord,—“a +chicken and a little bit of grass, or a tender young duck +and a dish of peas?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>But Francis Tredethlyn was walking up the little village +street out of earshot of these savoury suggestions before the +landlord had finished his sentence.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I don’t call that manners,” muttered Mr. Penruffin; “but +I shall cook the chicken for ten o’clock, and chance it; he can +afford to pay for it, whether he eats it or not. And I think, +taking into consideration old acquaintance and thirty thousand +a year, it would only have been friendly in Francis Tredethlyn +if he’d ordered a bottle of wine with his dinner.”</p> + +</div> + +<div class='pbb'> + <hr class='pb c001'> +</div> +<div> + +<div> + <h2 class='c003'><a id='chapter-VI'></a>CHAPTER VI.<br> <br><span class='fss'>THE END OF THE WORLD.</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>The sun was low when Francis Tredethlyn left the Crown Inn, +and walked slowly up the village street. The sun was low, and +already a crimson glory flickered here and there upon the quaint +old casements. The young man walked slowly, looking about +him with a half-doubtful, half-bewildered gaze, like a man who +sees his native village in a dream. And indeed no village in +the vision of a sleeper could be more tranquil in its rustic repose +than this Cornish street, steep and stony, mounting to the +summit of a hill, upon whose top the great gates of Landresdale +loomed grim and stately, like the entrance to an ogre’s castle in +fairyland. You climbed the steep little street; and you came +to the big gates of Landresdale; and that was all. The village +ended here; and there was nothing for you to do but to go back +again. It was like coming to the end of the world, and finding +a great Elizabethan door of ponderous oak and iron barred +against any chaotic realm that might lie beyond our every-day +<span class='pageno' id='Page_33'>33</span>earth. There may have been occasions—indeed, the inhabitants +of Landresdale would have testified to many such—on which +those ponderous doors swung open on their mighty hinges: but +the ignorant traveller, looking at them shut, found it difficult to +realize the possibility of their ever being opened. They looked +like the doors of a mausoleum: which may open once in half a +century to admit the coffined dead, but can never be unclosed +for any meaner purpose. Grim towers flanked the stony arch +on either side, and two old rusty cannon displayed their iron +noses within the shadow of the towers, ready to fire a volley +down the hilly street whenever the simple folks of Landresdale +should evince any revolutionary tendencies.</p> + +<p class='c008'>To the right of the great gates there was a handsome wing +of solid masonry, whose Tudor windows opened upon a square +courtyard, where there were more cannon, and upon a prim, old-fashioned +garden, shut in by a high wall, and only visible to the +wanderer through the iron rails and arabesques of a lofty gate, +amidst whose scrollwork the arms of the Landresdales and Treverbyns, +the Courtenays and Polwheles, were interlaced and +entangled.</p> + +<p class='c008'>The garden wall bounded the estate of Rashleigh Vyvyan +Trevannence, Marquis of Landresdale; and beneath the shelter +of that old ivy-covered red brick wall lay the churchyard, quiet +and shadowy, dark with the dense foliage of great yew-trees, +thick with long tangled grass, that grew high amongst the +slanting headstones. Francis Tredethlyn stopped by the low +wooden gate, and leaning against the moss-grown pillar that +supported it, looked up at the square towers which seemed like +stony sentinels for ever keeping guard over the entrance to +Landresdale. The light was red upon the corner window that +faced the western sky, but all the other casements stared blankly +and darkly out upon the graves in the churchyard, and the +empty village street, in which one woman, toiling slowly upwards +with a pitcher of water that slopped and trickled at +intervals upon the pavement, was the only living presence.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“The great gates look just the same as they used to look,” +thought Francis Tredethlyn. “When I was a boy, and read +fairy-tales, I always fancied that the enchanted castle the wandering +prince came to in the middle of a wood, or on the summit +of a great mountain, was like Landresdale, a castle standing all +alone in the middle of the way, with no road to the right nor to +the left, so that the prince <em>must</em> go in and ask shelter, though he +knew that harm would come of it, or else go back and lose all +the trouble of his journey. How I used to long to pull that +bell when I was a lad!” thought Francis, looking at the iron +ring which swung from a massive chain on one side of the +archway.</p> + +<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_34'>34</span>“But I’ve no need to dawdle here,” he thought, as he pushed +the gate open and went into the churchyard. “It seems as if +the nearer I get to the place where I am certain to hear the +truth about Susan, the more I dread hearing it.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>The ignorant traveller who might turn away from the great +gates of Landresdale to descend the hill under the impression +that the county of Cornwall came to an abrupt termination +upon the threshold of the Marquis’s domain, would have been +mistaken. There were other and higher lands, broad stretches +of hill and moorland, lying beyond the churchyard, to the right +of the quaint old garden and the Gothic towers and casements: +and it was thitherward that Francis Tredethlyn directed his +steps. He crossed the churchyard, only pausing briefly before +one tombstone, upon which the names of Sarah and John +Tredethlyn were cut, low down on the stone, at the bottom of a +long list of Tredethlyns, who lay buried in that churchyard. +The young man let himself out of the solemn precinct by a +little rusty iron gate that opened on a broad expanse of common +land sloping upward towards the western sky, and only broken +here and there by a quarry or a patch of water.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“It looks bleak and barren enough,” thought Francis, with +a shudder; “but it’s hereabouts that my uncle Oliver picked +up a good bit of his money. The tin mines lie out yonder; and +the stone quarry in the hollow there brought him in plenty, if +folks tell the truth.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Francis Tredethlyn might have echoed the boast of Helen +Macgregor had he chosen, and with stronger justification than +that lady, for the earth upon which he trod was not only his +native land but his own peculiar property, by virtue of certain +yellow-looking parchments under the sign-manual of an Earl and +Baron of Landresdale who flourished in the reign of James I. +and by payment of an eccentric annual tribute in the shape +of a young doe and a hundredweight of virgin tin. It was all +his own, this bleak waste land which Francis Tredethlyn, late +private soldier in her Majesty’s service, late valet to a capricious +master, now trod under his feet. Nor was it the less to be considered +for its barrenness of aspect, for rich metals lay deep +below the heathery surface, in mines that were amongst the +oldest and most valuable in Cornwall.</p> + +<p class='c008'>But Francis Tredethlyn was in no wise elated or disturbed by +the importance of his possession. He had never felt any ardent +desire for wealth, and as yet he had not begun to realize its +manifold advantages. He saw the effect of his fortune upon +other men, and smiled at their weakness; but what had been +true of him in the first hour of his altered position was true of +him now,—he had no power either to realize or rejoice in the +extent of his riches.</p> + +<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_35'>35</span>He walked slowly across the barren moorland, always upward, +always mounting towards a long ridge of western hill, behind +which two streaks of yellow light stretched low against the +darkening sky,—a bleak, bare-looking hill, that seemed the very +end of the world. It was upon this hillside that Tredethlyn +Grange had been built four centuries ago, in the days when men +built their houses with a view to endurance; and it stood there +still, a long gray tenement of moss-grown stone, with narrow +casement windows, looking darkly out upon the twilight moor. +The larger portion of the old house had been uninhabited during +the tenantship of the Tredethlyns, who, in a spirit of economy, +had located themselves in the interior rooms lying at one end of +the rambling mansion. It was in one of these rooms that a +light now twinkled faintly; and it was towards this end of the +house that Francis Tredethlyn directed his steps. There had +been a moat once on two sides of the house, but cabbages now +grew upon the sloping earth. There had been a garden once +before the Grange, and an old stone sun-dial still marked the +spot; but of all the trim flower-beds and angular paths there +remained no vestige now. A field of trefoil, bounded by a low +stone wall, lay beyond two broken pillars that had once supported +a pair of handsome gates; and the sheep browsed close +beneath the dim latticed windows.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“It seems like the end of the world to me to-night,” thought +Mr. Tredethlyn; “and yet once it was comfortable and home-like +enough, when I sat with Susy of a night by the fire in the +kitchen, while she darned the old man’s gray worsted stockings. +And to think that he had such oceans of money all that time, +and yet seemed almost to grudge his only child every gown she +wore, and every bit of bread she put into her mouth.” The +young man was close to the familiar threshold by this time. +He knocked at a low, narrow door in the neighbourhood of the +one dimly lighted window, and then drew back a few paces, +looking up at the old-fashioned casements.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“This is the window of Susy’s room,” he thought. “How +black and dark it looks to-night! I remember coming up here +the night before I ran away to Falmouth to enlist. I remember +standing by the low wall yonder, in the cold autumn night, +looking up at that very window. There was a light burning +then, and I thought of how I should see it burning just the same +when I came back, and how I’d throw a handful of earth up at +the old window, and Susy would look out, startled and wondering, +to find her faithful sweetheart come back to her from the +end of the world. And now it’s this place that seems like the +end of the world somehow, and <a id='tn-farfromsusy'></a>I’m every bit as far from Susy +now as ever I was out yonder.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>The door was opened only a very little way, and a woman’s +<span class='pageno' id='Page_36'>36</span>face, so hard and angular that it seemed almost to cut into the +dusky atmosphere, peered out at the traveller.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“What do you please to want, sir?” she asked, suspiciously.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I want to ask you a few questions, Martha Dryscoll. I’ve +come from the Antipodes to ask them.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Mr. Tredethlyn!” cried the woman, opening the door to its +widest extent; “Mr. Francis Tredethlyn come home to his own +like a ghost in the night! I make so bold as to bid you welcome, +sir. Your uncle’s empty chair stands ready for you. The house +seems strange and lonesome without him.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>It was not everybody who would have ascribed to Mr. Oliver +Tredethlyn the power to enliven any house with the smallest ray +of cheerfulness, or brighten any fireside with so much as the +faintest glimmer of light. But Martha Dryscoll spoke in all +good faith. She had believed in her master, and had worked +for him, and pinched for him, and half-starved herself and other +people for his sake, throughout five-and-thirty years of the +dreariest and hardest life that woman ever endured. He had +picked her up, starved and almost dying, upon a high road near +one of his outlying farms, and had taken her from field-labour +and all its attendant pains, to be his housekeeper and—slave; +and she had repaid this favour a thousandfold by a devotion +that knew no weariness, and a rigid economy that extended +itself to the saving of a grain of salt in the old spindle-legged +leaden saltcellars.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Oliver Tredethlyn had not been actuated by any Quixotic +motive in this eccentric choice of a servant. He took his housekeeper +from the wayside because he saw in her a stuff he had +vainly sought in the pampered menials who had hitherto presented +themselves to his notice. He had been attracted to Martha +in the first instance by her gaunt face and gaunter figure, which +would have been sufficiently alarming in one of King Frederick +William’s chosen grenadiers. He had been attracted still more +by her curt answers to his curt questions, in which she told him +that she had walked thirty miles that day before lying down, as +she believed, to die; that she had walked twenty miles the day +before, and five-and-twenty the day before that; that she had +not tasted food for the last eight-and-forty hours; and that she +had worked in the fields and lived upon an average of two-pence +a day ever since she could remember.</p> + +<p class='c008'>It was upon this that a bargain was struck between Oliver +Tredethlyn, of Tredethlyn Grange, of the one part, and Martha +Blank, Martha Anybody, of the other part, for the poor creature +had no knowledge of any special surname to which she might +lay claim. She had been called Carroty Jane in one place because +her hair was red and her name was not Jane. She had +been called Gawky Bet, and Lanky Poll, at other places, on +<span class='pageno' id='Page_37'>37</span>account of her abnormal height; but the name she had received +in the Union, where her earlier years had been passed, was +Martha, and it was this name which she herself recognised as her +legitimate appellation. She went home with Oliver Tredethlyn +in one of his empty waggons, and ate her first spare meal in the +Grange kitchen before nightfall; and from that hour until the +old man’s death she served him well and faithfully. She lived +with him all the days of his bachelorhood, and resignedly united +herself to his bailiff when he commanded her so to do. This +faithful creature welcomed Mr. Tredethlyn’s wife when he took +it into his head to bring home a small tenant-farmer’s pretty +daughter, who had been forced into a marriage with a man +whom she detested; and, faithful and untiring to the last, this +rough-handed, brawny-armed servant watched by the young +wife’s sick bed during those dull years in which she slowly +withered and faded, from a fresh, blooming girl, into a prematurely +old woman, and so sank by lingering stages into an early +grave, leaving behind her one only child, whose infancy and +girlhood were brightened by no softer light than such as might be +shed from the grim, grenadier-like affection of Martha Dryscoll.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Jonathan Dryscoll, the farm-bailiff whom Oliver Tredethlyn +had desired his housekeeper to marry, was ten years younger +than his wife, and was so poor and weak a creature morally and +physically in her hands, that he seemed at least half a century +her junior. If she told him to do anything, he did it. If she +told him to think anything, he thought it; or would have done +so, if the mental exercise had not been generally beyond the +scope of his faculties. He was as honest and faithful as Martha +herself; but if Martha had told him to go and fire all the ricks +on Oliver Tredethlyn’s property, he would have done it with the +blind trustfulness of a princess in a child’s story-book, who obeys +the eccentric behests of a fairy godmother. That Martha Dryscoll +could do anything wrong, or think anything wrong, was +an hypothesis which Jonathan her husband had never contemplated. +Perhaps the pleasantest thing about this couple was +that there was no disagreeable evidence of Martha’s authority. +Indeed, that worthy woman was most punctilious in respect to +her liege lord and husband, whom she always spoke of as “the +master.” Jonathan obeyed and trembled, but the sceptre which +his wife wielded was an invisible one, and the chains that bound +her slave were as impalpable as if they had been fashioned of +cobwebs.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Martha Dryscoll was not renowned for her capacity of expressing +any species of emotion; but some faint ray of pleasure +kindled in her grim face as she conducted Francis Tredethlyn +through the kitchen to an apartment that had served as a kind +of state chamber for three generations of his race. She set the +<span class='pageno' id='Page_38'>38</span>candle on the polished mahogany table, and, folding her arms, +contemplated the new master of the Grange at her leisure. In +that dim light, in her quaint, scanty dress, with a brown background +of oaken wainscot behind her, she looked like a quaint +figure in one of Jan Steen’s pictures, a hard-faced, angular +housewife, honest, laborious, and economical, with her ear perpetually +open to the leaking of beer-barrels, or the boiling-over +of soup-kettles; her eye ever on the alert to perceive waste or +destruction.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I wish you welcome, Mr. Tredethlyn,” she said; and then, +with something like sadness in her tone, “If the money <em>was</em> to +go away from her, better that it should go to you than to +strangers. I don’t think that you’d turn your back upon her, +if she was to need your help; would you now, Mr. Francis?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Turn my back upon her!” cried the young man,—“turn +my back upon my cousin Susy! Do you think I want the +money that ought to have been hers? With God’s blessing, I +will go to the end of the world to find my poor little girl. But +tell me—tell me all about it, Martha. I know you are a good +creature. I know you were fond of Susan, though you seemed +hard and stern, like the old man. Tell me all you know about +my lost cousin, and don’t fear but I’ll make good use of my +knowledge.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“It isn’t much I have to tell, sir,” answered the housekeeper, +very gravely. “You remember old Mr. Restwick, of Pen Gorbold. +Folks say that he’s almost as rich as our master was. +However it is, he and master were always fast friends; and +when Mrs. Restwick had been dead a little over a twelvemonth, +he and master seemed to get friendlier than ever, and was always +laying their heads together about something, old Restwick +hanging about this place, and sitting in our kitchen, and in this +very room—for master made quite a fuss with the old man, and +would sit in the parlour on his account—all the summer time. +Miss Susan usen’t to like the old man, but she daredn’t say as +much, seeing as he was her father’s friend. Heaven, as looks +down upon me, knows, Mr. Francis, than the real reason of old +Restwick pottering about our place night after night never came +into my head, no more than if it had been so much Greek or +Latin. But one night—one quiet summer evening, after such a +day as to-day—the truth came out all at once; and it came +upon Susan Tredethlyn as it came upon me—like a thunderbolt. +Can you guess what it was, Mr. Francis?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“No!” exclaimed the young man, staring at Martha Dryscoll +with a bewildered expression on his face.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Nor any one else, Mr. Francis, that wasn’t so wrapped up +in the love of his money that the very heart inside of him had +turned to stuff as hard as big golden guineas, or harder; for +<span class='pageno' id='Page_39'>39</span>there’s some kind of furnace as will melt <em>them</em>, isn’t there, Mr. +Francis? On the night I am telling you of, my master told +Susan the meaning of old Restwick’s visits. She was to marry +him—poor, pretty young thing. He’d promise to make such +and such—settlements—I think master called ’em, and she’d be +mistress of Pen Gorbold farm, and one of the richest women in +this part of the country. The poor dear only gave one shriek, +Mr. Francis, and fell down upon the floor at her father’s feet as +white and as quiet as a corpse.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“The hard-hearted villain!” cried Francis, pacing up and +down the room; “the infernal villain!”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“She didn’t lie there long; she wasn’t let to do that. Mr. +Tredethlyn lifted her up by the arm, and set her on her feet, +fierce and savage-like; and when she opened her eyes, and +looked about her, all stupefied and bewildered, he began to talk +to her. It was cruel talk to hear from a father to his child; it +was a cruel sight to see her trembling and shivering, and only +held from falling by his hard hand clenched upon her arm. I +tried to interfere between them, Mr. Francis; but my master let +his daughter drop into a chair, and pushed me out of the room. +Me and Jonathan was sleeping in the room over the stables then, +and Mr. Tredethlyn took me by the shoulders, and put me out +of the door that opens from the kitchen into the stone-yard at +back. I heard the door bolted against me, and I knew I could +be no help or comfort to that poor child all night. The door’s +thick, but I could just hear Susan Tredethlyn’s sobs now and +then, like as if they’d been blown towards me on the winds, and +her father’s voice speaking loud and stern; I listened till all +seemed quiet, and I was in hopes his heart was softened towards +her. But when I got up at four o’clock next morning—for it +was harvest-time, and we were very busy—Susan Tredethlyn’s +room was empty, and the front door was unlocked and unbolted. +She’d run away, Mr. Francis; she’d let herself out some time +in the night, and run away. There was a little scrap of a shawl +she used to wear hanging to the latch of the door. That was +bad news for me to tell my master, Mr. Francis; but I had to +tell it. He turned white, and glared at me for a minute just +like a wild beast, and there was a choking, gurgling kind of noise +in his throat. But he was as quiet after that one minute as if +he had been made of iron. ‘So much the better, Mrs. Dryscoll,’ +he said, ‘an undutiful daughter isn’t worth the meat she eats.’”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“But he went after her,” said Francis; “surely he made +some attempt to bring her back? He didn’t let a poor ignorant +girl go out into the world without a friend—without a +sixpence?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“She had a little money, Mr. Francis. Her father had +given her a sovereign on her birthday every year for the last +<span class='pageno' id='Page_40'>40</span>ten years, making her promise to save the money. She had +saved the money, for she had no chance to spend it, poor child; +and she took that money with her, for when I looked about her +room I missed the little box she used to keep it in. As to looking +for her, Mr. Tredethlyn never stirred hand or foot to do it, +though I went on my bended knees to him, begging and praying +of him to bring her back. As to me, Mr. Francis, I’m but a +poor ignorant countrywoman, that never learned to read and +write till I was getting on for thirty; but I got my husband to +go to Falmouth with an advertisement for the county paper, +saying as ‘S. T. was to remember she had a true friend in M. D., +and was to be sure and write to her whenever she wanted help.’ +I daredn’t say more, sir; and I think when master saw that +advertisement he knew what it meant, for he glared at me across +the paper, just as he glared at me when I told him his daughter +was gone.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“And he never relented—he never softened towards that poor +unhappy girl?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“For three years, sir, he never mentioned her name. Night +after night he’d sit and write, and make out his accounts, and +calculate his profits, and such-like, and he’d talk to me fast +enough about the business of the farm; but he never spoke his +daughter’s name. One day he got a letter directed in her hand. +I took it from the postman at Landresdale myself one afternoon +when I was down there marketing, and I wrote down the post-mark +that was on it, and that was all I ever knew of that +letter. When my master saw the hand, he came over all of a +tremble like, and there was something awful in the sight of that +stern old man trembling and shivering like as if he had been +stricken by the palsy; but he got over it in a minute, and read +the letter, me watching him all the time. If his face had been +stone, it couldn’t have told less. He crumpled up the letter and +put it in his pocket, and for three months he never spoke of that +nor of his daughter. Yet I knew somehow that he thought of +her; for a kind of change came over him, and he seemed always +brooding, brooding, brooding; and he’d start up all of a sudden +when we was all sitting of a night quiet in this kitchen—he’d +start up as if he was going right away, and then heave a long +sigh, and sit down again. But he never said anything about +what was in his thoughts, till one morning he came to me, and +said very quietly, ‘Pack me some clothes in a carpet-bag, Mrs. +Dryscoll. I’m going to London to look for my daughter.’ My +husband and him went on foot down to Landresdale to catch +the Falmouth coach; but our master never came back. The +next news as we heard of him, Mr. Francis, came to us a month +after he’d left. It was a letter from the lawyers, to say that +Mr. Oliver Tredethlyn was dead.”</p> + +<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_41'>41</span>“And is that all?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Yes, Mr. Francis; I can tell you no more. My master was +a good master to me, and I served him faithfully, and worked +hard to save his money. But things have all seemed to come +before me in a new light since that night when I saw Susan +Tredethlyn fall white and cold at her father’s feet, and him +without pity for her. It seems as if I’d been stone-blind up to +that time, Mr. Francis; and my eyes was opened all of a +sudden; and I saw that we’d been all wicked heathens, making +an idol out of money that had never brought happiness or comfort +to any living creature; least of all to ourselves. I saw it all +at once that night, Mr. Francis, and I knew that our lives had +been wrong somehow.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Martha Dryscoll spoke very earnestly. She was a good +woman, after her own manner; eager to do her duty to the +uttermost, grateful for small favours, faithful and affectionate. +A noble heart beat in that grenadier-like form, a gentle spirit +looked out of those hard gray eyes. She told the story of her +young mistress’s flight with a sorrowful solemnity, undisturbed +by tears. Perhaps her hard childhood, her bitter youth, her +joyless middle life had dried up the source of that tender +womanly emotion; for Martha Dryscoll had never been seen by +living witnesses to shed a tear. She unlocked a grim-looking +workbox, and took from it a little pocket-book, out of which she +tore a leaf.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“That’s the name that was on the post-mark, Mr. Francis,” +she said, handing the paper to Mr. Tredethlyn.</p> + +<p class='c008'>The young man read the word Coltonslough.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Coltonslough,” he repeated, “I never heard of a place of +that name. But I’ll find it, if it’s the most obscure spot upon +the earth. God bless you, Martha Dryscoll, for I believe you’re +a good woman.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>He held out his hand, and grasped the housekeeper’s bony +fingers as he spoke.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“We’ve been awaiting—me and the master—for orders from +you as to what we was to do, sir. We’re ready to serve you +faithful, if you want our service; but we’re ready to leave the +old place, if we’re any burden upon you. You’ll be coming to +settle here, maybe?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“No,” answered Francis Tredethlyn, with something of a +shudder. “If I’d found Susan here, as I once thought to find +her, I should have been glad enough to settle somewhere in +these parts. As it is, there’s something in the place that gives +me the heartache, and I doubt if I shall ever come near it +again. Whatever wages you and your husband had in my +uncle’s time shall be doubled from to-night, Mrs. Dryscoll; and +if my cousin Susan is still alive, and should ever find her way +<span class='pageno' id='Page_42'>42</span>back to this place, I should like her to see a light burning in +the old window, and to find a faithful friend ready to bid her +welcome home.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Francis Tredethlyn did not linger very long in the house +where a great part of his boyhood had been spent. Martha’s +husband came in presently, smelling very strongly of cowhouse +and stable, and the two would fain have given Mr. Tredethlyn +a detailed account of their stewardship: but the young man had +no heart to listen to them. What did it matter to him that he +was the poorer by the death of an Alderney cow on the pasture-farm +down in the valley, or the richer by a great sheep-shearing +season on the hill? He came home to find no creature of his +kith or kin. He stood as much alone in the world as Adam +before Eve was created to bear him company; and he felt very +desolate in spite of his thirty thousand a year.</p> + +<p class='c008'>He walked back to Landresdale across the bleak moorland +under the still summer night. Away in the distance he saw the +dark expanse of purple ocean melting imperceptibly into purple +sky: and vague and dim as that shadowy distance seemed the +unknown future that lay before him. He slept at the Crown, +and left Landresdale early the next morning by the Falmouth +coach, journeying Londonward: but he had by no means abandoned +his search for Susan Tredethlyn.</p> + +</div> + +<div class='pbb'> + <hr class='pb c001'> +</div> +<div> + +<div> + <h2 class='c003'><a id='chapter-VII'></a>CHAPTER VII.<br> <br><span class='fss'>MAUDE HILLARY’S ADORERS.</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>From the bleak moorland on the Cornish hills, where no tree +can flourish, and where the sweeping breath of the salt sea-breeze +nips the tender verdure, and makes the quiet sheep wink +again as they look oceanward; from the hilly district beyond +Landresdale, which seems like the end of the world, and is at +any rate the finishing-point of this British Isle, to the valley of +the Thames, the sheltered and lovely hollow nestling under the +wooded heights about the Star-and-Garter, is about as great a +change of scene as all England can afford. It is like the pushing +away of some battered front scene which has done duty for +the blasted heath near Forres, whereon Macbeth met the witches, +since the days when Garrick himself represented the ambitious +Thane, to reveal a glimpse of fairyland fresh from the pencil of +Mr. Beverley, with sunlit cascades glimmering here and there +amongst the verdant valleys, and forest-trees reflected in the +calm bosom of a lake.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Mr. Hillary’s place lay in a sheltered bend of the river, nearer +to Isleworth than to Twickenham—a spot where the trees grew +thicker and the shadows fell darker on the quiet water, and the +<span class='pageno' id='Page_43'>43</span>plash of oars was less often heard, than higher up the river, +Mr. Hillary’s house and Mr. Hillary’s garden seemed to have +nestled into the shadiest and most verdant nook along the river-bank. +It was called the Cedars, and it was a very old place, as +any place so called should be. It was called the Cedars by +virtue of the great trees whose spreading branches made patches +of dense shadow on the lawn; and not by the caprice of a +cockney builder, who christens his shelterless houses indifferently +after the noblest trees of the forest. The house was an +old red-brick mansion, long and low and irregular; and there +is no kind of window invented for the admission of the light of +heaven, and there is no species of blind devised by ingenious +artisan for the exclusion of that light when it becomes obnoxious, +which did not adorn and diversify the glowing crimson +of the façade. Oriel windows and Tudor windows; long French +windows of violet-stained glass, tiny diamond-paned casements, +and noble jutting-out bays; windows with balconies, and windows +with verandahs; striped linen blinds of crimson and white, +and Venetian shutters of dazzling green; windows leading into +conservatories, and windows opening into aviaries,—all combined +to bewilder the eye of the stranger who stood upon the +lawn by the river looking up at Mr. Hillary’s mansion.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Perhaps there never had been any where else so many flowers, +and birds, and gold-fish, and pet dogs, collected together in an +area of two acres and a half. Banks of particoloured blossoms +blazed in the sunshine on the lawn tier above tier, like the bonnets +on the grand stand at Ascot on a Cup day; marble basins +of limpid water and tiny trickling fountains twinkled and glittered +in every direction; fragile colonnades of delicate ironwork, +overhung with jasmine and clematis, honeysuckle and myrtle-blossom, +led away to bowery nooks upon the broad terrace by +the river; and what with the perfume of a million flowers, the +gurgling of blackbirds and thrushes, the carolling of skylarks, +the shrill whistling of a grove of canaries, the cooing of tropical +love-birds, the screaming of paroquets, and the barking of half-a-dozen +excited lapdogs, the stranger, suddenly let loose in Mr. +Hillary’s river-side Eden, was apt to yield himself up for the +moment to a state of confusion and bewilderment.</p> + +<p class='c008'>The place was in itself bewildering enough for the ordinary +mind; without Miss Hillary—without Miss Hillary! But when +Miss Hillary came sailing out of a drawing-room window, with +diaphanous draperies of white and blue fluttering and spreading +round her, and with all manner of yellow, gold, and purple +enamel absurdities dangling at her wrists, and depending from +the loveliest throat and the pinkest ears in Christendom,—the +stranger who was not provided with forty thousand a year and +a coronet, the which to lay at the feet of that adorable creature, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_44'>44</span>was the weakest of fools if he did not take to his heels there and +then, and fly from the Cedars, never to return thither. If he +stayed, he fully deserved his fate. If, looking at Maude Hillary, +and knowing that he could never hope to win her for his own, +he did not straightway flee from that flowery paradise beside +the sunlit river, all after-agonies endured by his luckless heart +were only the natural consequence of his mad temerity. But +then, unhappily, there are so many mad men in the world. +Homburg and Baden-Baden are dangerous places, but there are +crowds of deluded creatures who will haunt the dazzling halls of +the Kursaal, and the elegant saloons of M. Benazet, so long as +the fatal wheel revolves, and the croupier cries, “Make your +game, gentlemen; the game is made.” What can be a more +absurd spectacle than a big blundering moth whirling and fluttering +about the flame of a candle? Yet the incineration of +moth A will not be accepted as a warning by moth B, though +he may be a witness of the sacrifice. Younger sons and briefless +barristers, earning a fluctuating income by the exercise of +their talents in light literature; artists; curates, hopeless of rich +preferment,—came, and saw, and were conquered. The man +who, being a bachelor and under thirty years of age, beheld Maude +Hillary, and did <em>not</em> fall in love with her, was made of sterner +stuff than the rest of his race, and must have had in him the +material for a Cromwell or a Robespierre. He must have been +a stony, incorruptible, bilious creature, intended to hold iron +sway over his fellow-men; he had no business in the paradise +between Isleworth and Twickenham.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Shall I describe Maude Hillary as she sails across the lawn +this July morning? I use the word ‘sail,’ as applied to this +young lady’s movements, advisedly; for there was a swimming, +undulating motion in her walk, which was apt to remind one +of a lovely white-sailed yacht gliding far out across an expanse +of serene blue water on a summer’s day. Shall I describe her? +No; if I do, stern critics will tell me that she is a very commonplace +young person after all, when it is only my description that +will be commonplace. Her complexion was specially fair and +bright; but it was not because of her fair skin that she was +beautiful. Her features were delicate and harmonious; but +those who admired her most could scarcely have told you whether +her nose was nearer to the Grecian or the Roman type; whether +her forehead was low or high, her chin round or pointed. She +was bewitching, rather than beautiful. For if Paris awarded +the apple on purely technical grounds, a thousand lovely English +women might have disputed the prize with Maude Hillary. +But I think Paris would have wished to give her the apple, if +only for the pleasure of seeing her bright face light up into new +radiance with the joy of her triumph; though in strict justice +<span class='pageno' id='Page_45'>45</span>he might feel himself obliged to bestow the fruit elsewhere. +Miss Hillary was bewitching; and people saw her, and fell in +love with her, and bowed themselves down at her feet, long +before they had time to find out that she was not so very +beautiful after all.</p> + +<p class='c008'>She came winding in and out among the flower-beds now, +and betook herself towards an open temple at one end of the +terrace by the river—a temple of slender marble columns, entwined +with ivy and beautiful ephemeral parasites, whose gaudy +blossoms relieved the sombre green. Two gentlemen, who were +disporting themselves with lawn billiards, deserted that amusement +and strolled over to the temple. They went slowly enough, +because they held it vulgar to be in a hurry, and they were very +young, and very much used up as to all the joys and sorrows +and excitements of this earth; but they were over head and ears +in love with Miss Hillary notwithstanding.</p> + +<p class='c008'>She was not alone. She never was alone. She had for her +constant associates from four to half-a-dozen pet dogs, and Miss +Julia Desmond, her companion. Miss Desmond was by no +means the despised companion so popular in three-volume novels. +She was a very dignified young lady, whose father had been a +colonel in ever so many different armies. She was one of the +Desmonds of Castle Desmond, near Limerick, and there were +three peerages in her family, to say nothing of one extinct earldom, +forfeited by reason of high treason on the part of its possessor, +the revival of which, for his own benefit, had been the +lifelong dream of Patrick Macnamara Ryan O’Brien Desmond, +until death let fall a curtain on that and many other fond delusions +which had survived unchanged and changeless to the last +in the eternal boyhood of an Irishman’s nature.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Julia was a very dignified young lady, and had been highly +educated in a Parisian convent, whence she had returned to the +south of Ireland to find the impress of decay upon every object +around her, from the grass-grown roofs of the cottages in the +lane below the castle-boundary to the shattered figure of the +brave old colonel. She returned in time to attend her father’s +death-bed, to which Lionel Hillary, his oldest friend and largest +creditor, was summoned by an imploring letter from the old +colonel. To Mr. Hillary the old man confided his penniless +daughter. He had nothing to leave her but a set of old-fashioned +garnet ornaments which had belonged to her mother, and to +which he fondly alluded as the “fam’ly jools;” he had nothing +to leave her except this antique trumpery and his blessing; but +he confided her to his largest creditor, having a vague impression +that the largeness of the debt and the heavy interest he +<em>would</em> have given upon all the money lent him by his friend, +had he ever lived to return the principal, laid Mr. Hillary under +<span class='pageno' id='Page_46'>46</span>a kind of obligation to him. However it was, the London merchant +promised to be a friend and protector to Julia Desmond; +and as soon as the colonel’s funeral was over carried her back to +London with him, and established her in his own house, as the +companion of his daughter. A young lady more or less was of +little consequence in such an establishment as the Cedars; so +the merchant thought very lightly of what he did for Miss +Desmond, and Maude Hillary was delighted to have a friend +who was to be her perpetual companion; a friend who could +sing a good second to any duet, and was never out of time in +“Blow, gentle gales,” whensoever a masculine visitor with a +good bass organ was to be procured for the third in that delicious +glee. The two girls drove together, and walked together, and +rode together, and played duets on one piano and on two pianos, +or a harp and piano; and went out together to make water-colour +sketches of their favourite bends in the river, with very blue +water and very green willows, and a man in a scarlet jacket lazily +pushing a ferry-boat away from the shore, and a Newfoundland +dog, very black and white and spotty, lying on the bank.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Julia Desmond led a very pleasant life, and there were people +who said that the colonel’s daughter was a most fortunate person; +but for Julia herself there was just one drop in the cup which +was bitter enough to change the flavour of the entire draught. +She was <em>not</em> Maude Hillary. That was Miss Desmond’s +grand grievance. She brooded over it sometimes when she +brushed her hair of a night before the big looking-glass in her +pretty chintz-curtained chamber at the Cedars. Maude had two +cheval glasses that swung upon hinges at each side of her +dressing-table, and Maude had her own maid to brush her hair; +but Julia was fain to smooth her own dark tresses. Miss +Desmond thought of her grievance very often of a night, when +she contemplated her face by the light of a pair of wax candles, +and pondered upon the events of the day. She was not Maude +Hillary. She was not sole heiress to one of the largest fortunes—so +ran the common rumour—ever won by City merchant. +She had not received half the attention that had been bestowed +upon Miss Hillary during that day. And if not, why not? +Was it because she was less good-looking? Certainly not. Miss +Desmond was a handsome girl, with bold, striking features, and +her black eyes flashed indignation upon the other eyes in the +glass at the mere thought of any personal superiority on the part +of Maude Hillary. Was it because she was less accomplished? +No, indeed. Whose thumbs were the strongest and did most +execution in a fantasia by Thalberg? Whose right little finger +was clearest and steadiest in a prolonged shake? Whose figures +in a water-colour sketch stood firmest on their legs? Miss +Desmond’s, of course. But Maude was rich, and Julia was poor; +<span class='pageno' id='Page_47'>47</span>and the meanness of mankind was testified by the absurd devotion +which they all exhibited for the heiress. Julia was really +fond of Maude, and thought her tolerably pretty; but she did +not comprehend the grand fact that Miss Hillary was one of the +most fascinating of women, and that she herself was not. She +was handsome and stylish, and accomplished and well-bred; +but she was not bewitching. When Maude spoke in a friendly +manner to any masculine acquaintance he was apt to be seized +with a mad impulse that prompted him to kiss her there and +then, though eternal banishment from her divine presence would +be his immediate doom. Even women had something of the +same feeling when Miss Hillary talked to them; and perhaps +this may be attributed to the fact that her mouth was the best +and most expressive feature in her face. Such heavenly smiles, +such innocently and unconsciously bewitching variations of expression +played perpetually about those lovely rosy lips, that +the harshest woman-hater might have been betrayed into the +admission that amongst nature’s numerous mistakes Maude +Hillary’s creation was an excusable one. Fortune-hunters, who +came with mercenary aspirations, remained to be sincere. Rich +young stockbrokers, who speculated amongst themselves upon +the extent of Lionel Hillary’s wealth, would have gladly taken +Maude to wife, “ex everything.” But Julia Desmond could not +understand all this, and she regarded her benefactor’s daughter +as a feminine image of the golden calf, before which mercenary +mankind bowed down in servile worship.</p> + +<p class='c008'>The two girls seated themselves in the little temple, and the +two worshippers came round and performed their homage. But +Miss Hillary had more to say to her dogs than to the loungers +on the lawn.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Good morning, Captain Masters.—Floss, you are the +naughtiest darling.—Haven’t I told you once before, Scrub, +that Honiton lace is <em>not</em> good to eat?—Papa has not come home +yet, I suppose, Mr. Somerset?—That tiresome City makes a +kind of orphan of me, doesn’t it, Julia? We never have papa +to go with us anywhere now, do we, Julia?—No, Peasblossom, +anything but a locket with papa’s hair in it. <em>That</em> must +not be worried.—When are we to go to the <span lang="fr"><i>fête</i></span>, Captain +Masters?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>The captain shrugged his shoulders. He was very young, +and held every thing upon earth, except Maude, in supreme +detestation and contempt.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“As from four to five is about the hottest period in the entire +day, I believe the <span lang="fr"><i>fête</i></span> is supposed to be at its best somewhere +between four and five,” he said; “we manage these things so remarkably +well in England.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“But as the Duke and Duchess are both French, I suppose +<span class='pageno' id='Page_48'>48</span>the management of the <span lang="fr"><i>fête</i></span> at the Château de Bourbon is French +too, isn’t it?” asked Miss Desmond.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Maude was occupied with a Scotch terrier, who was making +ferocious snaps at the jasmine trailing from the roof above her. +She would have made a charming subject for a modern Greuze, +with the dog held up in her hands, and the loose white muslin +sleeves falling back from those fair rounded arms in soft cloudy +folds.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“The Duke and Duchess are very charming,” said Mr. Somerset; +“and when one thinks that if they had lived in seventeen +ninety-three, instead of eighteen forty-eight, they’d have +been inevitably guillotined on the Place Louis Quinze, instead +of being comfortably settled in the neighbourhood of Isleworth, +one feels an extraordinary kind of interest in them as living +illustrations of improvement of the times. But, apart from +that, Miss Hillary, don’t you think the <span lang="fr"><i>fête</i></span> a bore? Don’t you +think any charity <span lang="fr"><i>fête</i></span> more or less a bore? I can understand +people sending you a subscription list, and telling their man to +wait in your hall till you write a cheque for them; but I can’t +understand people choosing the hottest day in a hot summer to +parade about a garden, grinning and smirking at one another, +and giving exorbitant prices for things they don’t want.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“But you mean to go to the <span lang="fr"><i>fête</i></span>, Mr. Somerset?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Most decidedly, if I am to have the honour of going with +you—and Miss Desmond.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Miss Desmond, with one flash of her black eyes, expressed her +appreciation of the little pause that had preceded Mr. Somerset’s +mention of her name.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Yes, I suppose we are to take you with us,” Maude answered, +with cruel carelessness. “Papa said that if he were not home +at three, we were to go without him, and he would meet us at +the château,—and it’s past three now, I declare, Julia, and +we’re not dressed,” added Miss Hillary, looking at her watch; +“and papa is always so particular about punctuality. Wasn’t +it Lord Nelson who won the battle of Trafalgar through always +being a quarter of an hour beforehand? I almost wish the +French had beaten him, for then people couldn’t have quoted +him against one perpetually. Will you order the carriage, Julia, +dear?—or will you tell them about it, Mr. Somerset? The +landau, with the bays; papa said the bays were to be used to-day.—Now +Julia, dear.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>The two girls ran away to dress, and reappeared in about +twenty minutes; Julia very splendid in a golden-brown silk +dress, and a pale pink bonnet; Miss Hillary in cloud-like garments +of lace, or tulle, or areophane, that were especially becoming +to her tall slender figure and the fragile style of her +beauty. Maude Hillary was a very extravagant young lady, and +<span class='pageno' id='Page_49'>49</span>had <span lang="fr"><i>carte blanche</i></span> at Messrs. Howell and James’s, on whose +account her father was wont to write heavy cheques at long +intervals, without any investigation of the items; but Miss +Hillary very seldom wore silk dresses, which are, after all, about +the most economical thing a lady can wear. She affected gauzy +fabrics, all festoons, and puffings and flounces, which were +thrown aside for the profit of her maid after the third time of +wearing, and ultimately figured in second-hand wardrobe repositories +in the dreariest outskirts of Pimliconia. Indeed, one +devoted admirer of Miss Hillary, penetrating Vauxhall bridgewards +from Eccleston Square, had been startled by the apparition +of his lovely partner at a recent ball dangling limply, rosebuds +and all, from a peg in a dingy shop-window.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Maude was very extravagant; but then how could she well be +otherwise? Her appreciation of “pounds” was very little +above that of Mr. Harold Skimpole. She very rarely had any +money; if she wanted shillings, she borrowed them—by the +handful—of the housekeeper at the Cedars. But, on the other +hand, she had unlimited credit almost everywhere. A beggar, +or one of the churchwardens of Isleworth, armed with a plate +after a charity-sermon, were about the only persons who ever +demanded ready money from her. She had a vague idea that +there was no limit to her father’s wealth, and that she was to +have as much of it as she required for her own uses whenever +she married, if he approved of her marriage; and if he did not +approve, she would not have the money, and would be poor, and +live in a pretty cottage somewhere in the neighbourhood of St. +John’s Wood, without so much as a pair of ponies to drive in +the Park. She looked forward very vaguely to this sort of +thing, always believing that the most indulgent of fathers would +come by-and-by to smile upon the penniless Harcourt Lowther, +and that everything would end happily, as it does in a comedy. +She sighed now and then, and told her confidante, Julia, that +she was the most miserable of creatures when she thought of +poor dear Harcourt slaving himself to death in that dreadful +Van Diemen’s Land; but, on the whole, she bore her separation +from her affianced lover with considerable resignation. Was she +not by nature a bright and hopeful creature? and had she not +from babyhood inhabited a kind of fairy circle, separated from +all the common outer world by a golden boundary, sheltered +from every rude breath of heaven by a limitless canopy of banknotes?</p> + +<span class='pageno' id='Page_50'>50</span> + +</div> + +<div class='pbb'> + <hr class='pb c001'> +</div> +<div> + +<div> + <h2 class='c003'><a id='chapter-VIII'></a>CHAPTER VIII.<br> <br><span class='fss'>AT THE CHÂTEAU DE BOURBON.</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>The château in which some of the banished descendants of +Louis the Great had set up their household gods, in the shape of +a most exquisite collection of artistic treasures, was only a mile +or so distant from Mr. Hillary’s house. It was an old red-brick +mansion like the Cedars; and, indeed, the banks of the Thames +seem specially rich in red-brick mansions of the Georgian period. +It was a noble old house, and had extended itself of late years +on either side, until it was almost palatial of aspect. It was a +very pretty house, filled to overflowing with art-treasures, about +almost every one of which there hung a history as interesting +as the object itself. Royalty, the banished royalty of France, +inhabited that simple suburban mansion; and on the smooth +lawn, where the pennants were flying and the band playing, a +quiet-looking gentleman moved about among the visitors, whose +grave and noble face was the exact reproduction of another face, +to be seen in stained marble under a glass case within the mansion; +the face of a gentleman who, in the course of an adventurous +career, won some little distinction under the style and +title of Henry IV., King of France and Navarre.</p> + +<p class='c008'>It was almost like going back into the past for an hour or so +to lounge on that sunny lawn at Twickenham, so strange yet so +familiar were some of the names that were heard on the lips of +the crowd. There was a mournful kind of interest in those historic +titles; and the aspect of the pretty flower-festooned marquees, +where elegant women were charging fabulous prices for +all manner of absurdities in the way of Berlin wool, recalled the +image of tented plains and fields of cloth-of-gold, in the days +when the sons of St. Louis had other and more high-sounding +business in this world than such gentle works of charity as +occupied them pleasantly enough to-day.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Maude Hillary was in her glory in the gardens of the Château +de Bourbon. She had plenty of ready money, for once in a +way; a crisp little bundle of five-pound notes, which her father +had brought from the City on the previous evening; and she +distributed her wealth freely among the fashionable stall-keepers, +loading herself and her attendant cavaliers with wax dolls and +Berlin-wool work, reticules, antimacassars, painted fire-screens, +bottles of toilet vinegar, and feather flowers. She knew a great +many people, and she was so bright and animated, and happy-looking, +that people who were utter strangers to her watched her +with a feeling of interest, and asked one another who she was. +She was standing amidst a group of aristocratic acquaintance +upon the terrace overlooking the river, when she cried out that +<span class='pageno' id='Page_51'>51</span>her papa had arrived, and ran away to meet him, leaving Julia +Desmond and the two young men behind her.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“An hour after your time, papa,” she said, putting both her +hands into his; “and I’ve spent all my money, and I’ve bought +these for you.” She flourished a pair of gorgeously-embroidered +slippers before his eyes, and then put her arm through his with +an air of proprietorship that was as charming as—every thing +else she did.</p> + +<p class='c008'><a id='tn-hillary'></a>Lionel Hillary, Australian merchant, of Moorgate Street, +London, was a handsome-looking man, tall, and stout, and dark, +with iron-grey hair and whiskers, and very unlike his daughter +in every respect; for the happy brightness which was the +chief element of her beauty found no reflection in his face. He +looked very grave, and a little careworn; and Maude, watching +him closely, said presently,</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I’m afraid you have one of your headaches again to-day, +papa?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Yes, my dear; I’ve been working rather hard this morning. +Let me introduce you to this gentleman, whom I have induced +to come and spend a little of his money for the benefit of the +Duchess’s poor people.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>This gentleman was Mr. Francis Tredethlyn, who had been +loitering a little in the rear of Lionel Hillary while the merchant +talked to his daughter. The two men had become acquainted +with each other in the simplest possible manner. Amongst the +property Francis Tredethlyn had inherited from his uncle was a +bundle of shares in a certain Australian insurance company of +which Mr. Hillary was a director. Francis, wanting to make +some inquiry about the shares, had been advised to go to Mr. +Hillary, and had done so. He found the merchant very cordial +and friendly,—he had found a great many people in these dispositions +towards him lately,—and with the frankness natural to +him had told a good deal of his story to that gentleman; always +avoiding any allusion to his cousin Susan. Lionel Hillary, +being much pleased with his manner, and being generally very +kind and hospitable to any young men who came in his way, +had offered to drive his new acquaintance down to Twickenham.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“You must find London miserably dull at this time of year,” +he said. “There’s a <span lang="fr"><i>fête</i></span>, or a fancy fair, or something of that +kind, our way. I’ll drive you down, and you shall dine at my +place afterwards.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Thus it was that Francis Tredethlyn found himself upon the +lawn before the Château de Bourbon, making what he felt to be +a very awkward bow, and most heartily wishing that some convulsion +of nature might open a ready-made grave in the smooth +turf on which he stood, wherein he might hide himself from the +bright eyes of Miss Hillary.</p> + +<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_52'>52</span>She spoke to him in the easiest, friendliest manner; asked +him if he had ever been to the château before; if he liked a +fancy fair; hoped he meant to spend <span class='fss'>EVER</span> so much money. +She opened her eyes very wide as she said this, and he saw +how blue they were, and then felt an actual blush kindling under +his brown skin. Such a woman as this had never before walked +by his side, talking to him, and smiling at him. He answered +her animated inquiries as best he might, and found himself +thinking of all manner of incongruous things,—of Maude Hillary’s +blue eyes and point-lace parasol, of his own awkwardness +and ignorance, of the narrow points of her dove-coloured boots, +as they peeped from under her dress now and then, like anything +in the world you like <em>except</em> Sir John Suckling’s mice, of +the old farmhouse on the Cornish moorland, of little Susy in a +white dimity sun-bonnet.</p> + +<p class='c008'>He had never been in such a place before, mixing on equal +terms with well-dressed men and women, about most of whom +even he, in despite of his ignorance, recognized a nameless something +that stamped them as superior to the common run of well-dressed +people. That in itself was enough to bewilder him. +He had never before seen such a woman as Maude Hillary; and +even experienced young men from Government offices found +Maude Hillary bewildering. He felt terribly embarrassed and +out of place; and after undergoing a sharp ordeal on the terrace, +where he was introduced to Miss Desmond, and the two young +men staying at the Cedars, he was not a little rejoiced to find +himself free for a few minutes, while Mr. Hillary and his +daughter talked to a group of new arrivals. He strolled away +to the end of the terrace, and lounged upon the marble balustrade, +looking down at a lane below—a kind of gorge cut through +two separate gardens, in which some of the common folks of +the neighbourhood were gathered, listening to the music of the +band, and staring at the splendid line of carriages waiting for +the guests in the gardens above.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I didn’t think I was such a fool as to let my brains be +muddled like this by a lot of fine dresses and parasols, and +flower-beds, and the playing of a brass band,” he thought; +“they’re flesh and blood, those people, I suppose, like the rest +of us. <em>She’s</em> flesh and blood, just as much as my mother that’s +dead and gone, or poor little Susy. But when I looked at her +just now, it seemed as if there was a light shining all about her +somehow, that almost blinded me. She spoke to me as prettily +and as kindly as she spoke to her father; and yet I felt more +afraid of her than if she had been my uncle Oliver, and I a +little boy again, tumbling down his corn in the valley farm.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>He moved a little way from the balustrade, and stood looking +rather sheepishly towards the group he had left, doubtful +<span class='pageno' id='Page_53'>53</span>whether he was expected to rejoin them, or to stroll about by +himself, amusing himself as he pleased. He would have given +a great deal of money for the poorest treatise on etiquette which +would have told him as much as this; and in the mean time he +lingered where he was, twirling a very big pair of lavender +gloves which he had bought—through the agency of Mr. +Hillary’s groom, and with no reference to their adaptability to +his own hands—on the way down.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Lingering thus, doubtful of himself, and painfully conscious +of being very much out of keeping with the scene around him, +he still thought of all manner of incongruous things; and +among other fancies one special thought, which could have had +no possible connection with the events of the day, kept surging +upwards on the troubled sea of his reflections.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I never loved my cousin Susan,” he thought; “I know now +that I never really loved my cousin Susan.”</p> + +</div> + +<div class='pbb'> + <hr class='pb c001'> +</div> +<div> + +<div> + <h2 class='c003'><a id='chapter-IX'></a>CHAPTER IX.<br> <br><span class='fss'>JULIA DESMOND MAKES HERSELF AGREEABLE.</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>Captain Masters drove Lionel Hillary’s phaeton to the Cedars, +when the crowd in the sunny gardens before the Château de +Bourbon had dispersed, and only a few scattered groups still +lingered about the pleasant home of exiled royalty. Amongst +which loiterers might be observed some lively gentlemen of the +occasional-reporter species, who wanted to ascertain whether +there would not be something in the champagne and lobster-salad +way before the <span lang="fr"><i>fête</i></span> was finished. Captain Masters drove +his friend Mr. Somerset back to the Cedars in the mail-phaeton, +while Lionel Hillary and Francis Tredethlyn went home with +the ladies in the landau.</p> + +<p class='c008'>The man who had been a private soldier only a few +months before that day, and who had not yet been able to +realize the change made in his position by the inheritance of +thirty thousand a year, found himself oppressed by a strange +feeling as he sat in Miss Hillary’s open carriage with his back +to the horses, surrounded by billows of silk and lace and muslin, +a surging sea of feminine draperies, from which a faint perfume +was wafted towards him as the summer wind blew in his face. +It was not so much that he was ill at ease in that feminine presence, +or in any way daunted by the fire of two pairs of handsome +eyes. The feeling which oppressed him was rather a sense +of unreality. He was like a child at a pantomime, who sees a +stage-fairy for the first time, and cannot believe that the resplendent +creature is only flesh and blood. He looked at Maude +Hillary, and thought of his cousin Susan’s rosy cheeks and +<span class='pageno' id='Page_54'>54</span>brown hair shaded by the familiar dimity sun-bonnet. There +were men in the world who might aspire to marry such a +creature as this Miss Hillary. He tried to imagine the sort of +man who might lift his eyes to that divinity; and there arose +in his mind the picture of a grandiose creature with yellow +whiskers and a geranium in his button-hole. The æsthetic +element in Mr. Tredethlyn’s mind was as yet very imperfectly +developed; and his idea of a lover befitting Maude Hillary +leaned rather to the gaudy king’s-pattern order of mankind.</p> + +<p class='c008'>The Australian merchant sat with his head leaning back +against the cushions of the carriage and his eyes closed. His +headache was, if anything, worse, he confessed, in answer to +Maude’s anxious inquiries. He did not speak three times during +the homeward drive, and his daughter rarely took her eyes from +his face. She was very fond of him, and displayed her affection +for him now as frankly as she had done when she had been a +little girl in a white frock, sitting on his knee after dinner, and +eating unwholesome fruits and confections out of his plate. +She watched him now with a tender anxiety in her face, and +seemed almost unconscious of the presence of the big soldier-like +individual with a bronzed countenance and close-cropped +black hair. But Francis Tredethlyn was not entirely neglected, +for Miss Desmond appeared determined to atone for Maude’s +want of courtesy. She had heard the Cornishman’s story from +Mr. Somerset, who had heard it from a gentleman whom he +described as “a fellow in the 11th Hussars;” and the handsome +Julia felt some little interest in the hero of the narrative. +An ignorant young man, a farmer’s son, who has suddenly come +into a fortune of thirty thousand a year, is not the sort of person +to be met with every day. Julia remembered that dreary +ruin, that tall stone gaol on the bare hill beyond Limerick, +which sounded so well when casually alluded to as Castle Desmond; +but whose image chilled her as it rose, dismal and stony, +before her mind’s eye. She remembered the muddy roads, the +murderous ruts, the broad acres of irredeemable bog, the long +rank grass waving on the roofs of tumbledown stone cabins, the +gaunt pigs and gaunter peasantry; and a feeling that was not +altogether ignoble kindled a sudden flush upon her handsome +face. What could not be done for Castle Desmond and those +ill-used peasantry by a chieftainess who should have thirty thousand +a year at her command! She fancied herself a kind of fairy +queen, beneath whose wand pleasant homesteads might arise +on those desolate hills, and yellow cornfields spread a golden +mantle over the valleys now so bare and empty. Miss Desmond’s +lot in life was altogether exceptional, and the sentimental +dreams which come to some young women had no lodgment in +her brain. She looked her fate straight in the face, and was +<span class='pageno' id='Page_55'>55</span>eager to make the best of any opportunity that might fall in +her way. For the present she was very well off where she was; +though the worship of the golden calf, as represented by Maude +Hillary, was a perpetual abomination to her. But she was +tolerably resigned to her present position at the Cedars. It +was only in the future that her life looked dark and threatening. +She must marry before Miss Hillary,—that was essential,—or +else she must resign herself to the miserable position of a companion +on sufferance, necessary to Maude, perhaps, but very +disagreeable to Maude’s husband.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Under these circumstances, a chance visitor at the Cedars +with thirty thousand a year for his fortune was not a person +to be disdainfully entreated even by the daughter of all the +Desmonds: so Julia was very kind to Francis Tredethlyn +during that brief homeward drive, asked him all manner of +questions respecting his sentiments upon things in general and +the charity <span lang="fr"><i>fête</i></span> in particular, and flashed her handsome eyes +and white teeth upon him until he was almost dazzled by their +brightness. Miss Desmond had very dark eyes—eyes that +seemed of a greenish hazel when you saw them in repose, but +which looked almost black when they sparkled athwart a fringe +of dusky lashes. She had dark eyes and very white teeth; and +the distinguishing characteristic of her face was the contrast +between the darkness of one and the white glitter of the other. +Mr. Tredethlyn knew that the young lady was very handsome, +and that there was some condescension involved in her friendly +notice of him; but his eyes wandered away to Maude’s fair face +and earnest blue eyes, and there was a suspicion of irrelevance +in some of his replies to Miss Desmond’s animated questions. +If he had been less absent-minded, he might have seen that +young lady’s white teeth close vengefully upon her lower lip as +she turned from him after one of those doubtful answers.</p> + +<p class='c008'>The dinner at the Cedars went off very quietly. Mr. Hillary +was silent, but hospitable, or at least as much so as a man can +be in these days of Russian dinners and vicarious hospitality. +Francis had lodged at a comfortable hotel in the regions of +Covent Garden since his return from Cornwall, and had in no +way altered his simple habits of life; so he was not a little +puzzled by the array of glasses by the side of his plate, the +lumps of ice which an obsequious attendant dropped ever and +anon into his Moselle, the mysterious compounds in silver +dishes which he discovered suddenly at his elbow whenever he +was most abstracted by the novelty of the scene about him, +and the vision of Maude Hillary, sitting on the other side of +the round table in a cloud of white and blue. The dishes at +that wonderful feast seemed so many culinary conundrums to +Mr. Tredethlyn, and I fear that he made some very obvious +<span class='pageno' id='Page_56'>56</span>mistakes in the management of the spoons and forks perpetually +thrust upon him by the stealthy-footed retainers. But the +dinner was over at last, and Captain Masters opened the dining-room +door for the departure of the ladies, while poor Francis +could only sit blankly staring like a countryman at a play. +Lionel Hillary did not linger long over his wine; he had some +papers to look at in his study, he said, and excused himself on +that ground, as well as on account of that obstinate headache +of his. The young men seemed very glad to be released from +the atmosphere of hothouse flowers and pine-apple, faintly +mingled with that odour of the bygone dinner which will hang +round the most elegant dining-room, ventilate it as you will. +Was not Maude Hillary in the drawing-room, whence already +might be heard the sparkling ripple of arpeggio passages upon +the piano? The two young loungers followed Mr. Hillary out +into the hall, and Francis went with them, uncomfortably conscious +of disadvantages not to be outbalanced by the possession +of half a million or so in all manner of seven-per-cent-paying +investments. The young soldier blacking his master’s boots +had been the easiest-mannered of mankind; but Oliver Tredethlyn’s +heir felt terribly embarrassed in Maude Hillary’s +presence—only in her presence; he was not at all abashed by +Miss Desmond’s eyes and teeth, though all their contrastive +brightness was brought to bear upon him. Maude was at the +piano, and Julia was bending over a stand of engravings. It +may be that she had not very long fallen into that graceful +attitude. When the three young men entered the room she +looked up, and Mr. Tredethlyn meeting her friendly glance, and +being considerably at a loss what to do with himself, went over +to her, and found a comfortable haven in a low easy-chair near +the couch on which she was sitting.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Do you care much for Leech, Mr. Tredethlyn?” she asked, +as she turned over the leaves of a portfolio reprinted from <cite>Punch</cite>.</p> + +<p class='c008'>The young man looked rather puzzled by this question.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I don’t care much for them,” he answered, frankly. “I +never had any but once, and that was in Van Diemen’s Land, +when I had the fever,—fifteen of them on my temples, and that +was no joke, you know, Miss Desmond.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>He was quite at his ease with Julia; but he would not for +the world have been so confidential to Maude Hillary. Miss +Desmond laughed good-naturedly.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I don’t mean those horrible creatures that they put on one’s +temples,” she exclaimed, “but Mr. John Leech, the caricaturist. +You must have seen <cite>Punch</cite>, even in Van Diemen’s Land?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Oh, yes! my mas—superior officer used to get it from his +mother every mail.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>He took the portfolio from Miss Desmond, and turned over +<span class='pageno' id='Page_57'>57</span>the leaves: but he only stared absently at Mr. Leech’s most +brilliant performances, and his eyes wandered away every now +and then to the piano, where Maude Hillary was skimming +through the gems of a new opera and dallying with her two +adorers, deliciously unconscious of their adoration. Had she not +inhabited an atmosphere of universal admiration and affection +ever since she had exhibited her pink cheeks and infantile ringlets +in company with the seven-shilling March peaches and five-guinea +pine-apples, after her father’s pompous dinners, to be +admired by ponderous old City magnates in the pauses of solemn +discussions upon the rate of discount and the last grand crash +on the Stock Exchange?</p> + +<p class='c008'>Julia Desmond, always observant—cursed, perhaps, with an +especial faculty for penetrating all unpleasant secrets lying +hidden under the many masks which society has invented for +the convenience of mankind—Miss Desmond, I say, was not +slow to perceive the Cornishman’s preoccupation, nor slow to +credit Miss Hillary with another item in that heavy account so +long standing between them.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Even this country boor, with a great fortune of his own, +must pay his meed of homage to the millionaire’s daughter,” +thought Julia. “Is there some magical power in the possession +of money which imparts a kind of fascination to the possessor?” +Colonel Desmond’s daughter had felt some of the keenest stings +of poverty, and it may be that she had grown to entertain an +exaggerated estimation of that golden dross which is so paltry a +thing when considered in a philosophical spirit. She looked at +the young man sitting by her side; and as she looked, a mystic +golden halo seemed to arise about him and surround him, until +he appeared almost like an old picture of a saint, painted upon +a shadowless background of gold. Thirty thousand a year! +and he was young, handsome, manly, good-tempered-looking, or +even something more than this; for there was a dash of nobility +in his simple bearing which scarcely seemed to belong to the +runaway son of a small farmer. The good old blood of the +Tredethlyns, once squires and landowners of some degree, was +not dishonoured by the young man who had blacked Harcourt +Lowther’s boots in Van Diemen’s Land. He was not a gentleman +after the manner of the nineteenth century; he seemed +rather like a stalwart soldier of the past, simple and daring, +frank and generous. Julia, contemplating him always enframed +in the golden halo, saw that, with the advantage of a clever +woman’s training, he might be made a very presentable creature; +in spite of that private-soldier story, which, after all, was spiced +with a certain flavour of romance.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“People would say I married him for his money,” thought +Miss Desmond; “but then they would say that if I married a +<span class='pageno' id='Page_58'>58</span>provincial banker with fifteen hundred a year. Thirty thousand! +thirty thousand a year!—and he is not a man who would act +meanly in the matter of a settlement—and he could buy the +Irish estate for a mere song—and he might call himself Tredethlyn +Desmond.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Maude Hillary’s companion and friend had employed herself +for a very long time in the consideration of one grand subject—her +own destiny. For a long time she had estimated every creature +who came in her way by one unvarying gauge. Had he, or +had he not, any bearing on that supreme question? If the +answer were in the negative, Miss Desmond wasted no further +thought upon the useless creature. But if she saw in the +shadowy distance some possible combination of circumstances in +which the individual might become a thread, however slightly +interwoven, in the fabric of her destiny, Julia expended her +brightest smiles and sweetest words for his gratification.</p> + +<p class='c008'>It was in no way strange, therefore, that the young lady who +had given a good deal of attention to hare-brained young ensigns +and penniless young curates with nothing better than remote +expectations, should consider Mr. Tredethlyn worthy of her most +serious deliberation. The present, however, was no time for +thought,—for were not the young man’s eyes perpetually wandering +towards the slender figure under the light of the moderator +lamp? Miss Desmond felt there was no time to be lost. +Already the rich man had made his election—already he had +enrolled himself in the list of Maude Hillary’s victims. Another +woman, perceiving the state of affairs, might have resigned herself +to the loss of this grand chance of winning a rich husband; +but Julia’s courage was not so easily dashed. It rose, rather, +with the thought of contest. Had not her father been a grand +old freebooter, boasting of kingly blood in his battered old body, +and spilling it under the colours of every rebel army in modern +Europe? The Desmond spirit rose in Julia’s breast as she saw +Francis Tredethlyn’s wandering glances, half sheepish, half unconscious.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I can set myself against her this time,” she thought; “and +the battle between us will be a fair one. <em>This</em> man cannot be a +fortune-hunter. We meet on tolerably equal terms for once in +a way, Miss Hillary, and let us see who will win.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Julia’s dark eyes flashed their brightest as she looked across +all the width of the room to the radiant-looking girl at the +piano; and then she turned them suddenly upon Francis Tredethlyn, +and began to talk to him. She began to talk to him, +and, more than this, she made him listen to her. Miss Desmond +was a brilliant talker. She possessed that wondrous faculty +vulgarly called the gift of the gab,—the power of talking about +everything and anything, or even about nothing, for the matter +<span class='pageno' id='Page_59'>59</span>of that; the power of enchaining a listener in spite of himself, +holding him prisoner when he had rather be away, and yet not +detaining him an altogether unwilling prisoner;—the power of +talking ignorantly, without seeming to be ignorant; speculating +ideas and allusions at a venture, and never betraying the shallowness +of their nature; assuming an interest in the most uninteresting +subject, and never revealing the hollowness of the +assumption,—a power, in short, which in its fascination seems +like a modern form of those classic philtres which Roman +maidens were wont to administer to eligible bachelors in the +days when Rome was young. It may be said that Miss Desmond +owed this faculty in some degree to her Hibernian ancestry; +but no suspicion of their native accent vulgarized her +discourse. Only a softer and richer depth in her low voice betrayed +her Celtic origin.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Julia began to talk to Francis Tredethlyn, and, in spite of +himself, he listened, and was fain to withdraw his gaze from the +distant figure at the piano. She talked to him of a soldier’s +life, jumping recklessly at conclusions, and taking it for granted +that he must needs possess some latent spark of military ardour, +which would blaze up into a flame under the fire of her enthusiasm. +She talked to him of her father, and all those guerrilla +warfares in which he had won distinction. She talked of Don +Carlos, and Abd-el-Kader, and Garibaldi, whose name had not +then the glorious significance which it carries with it to-day. +She talked to him like a young Joan of Arc or an embryo +maid of Saragosa;—and all that was brightest in Mr. Tredethlyn’s +nature kindled beneath her influence. Had Francis +been a stockbroker, Miss Desmond would have discoursed to +him of Lionel Rothschild, or Lafitte, or Mirès; and she would +have glowed with just the same enthusiasm, though her theme +had been the Stock Exchange or the Bourse.</p> + +<p class='c008'>But in spite of himself Mr. Tredethlyn was pleased and interested. +His boyish yearning for a military career had been +very nearly trampled out of him during dreary years of marchings +and counter-marchings, and sword-exercise, and barrack-tyranny, +with never the glimpse of a battle-field, or so much +as a brief skirmish with some chance enemy. But those fresh +young feelings all came back to him when Julia discoursed in +low eloquent accents of her father’s foreign experiences. “Ah, +that was something like a military career!” thought the young +man. “It was such a life that I hoped to lead when I ran +away from Landresdale; and I thought I should come back a +general, with a cocked-hat and a great plume of feathers, as the +gardener’s son does in the play I saw once at Falmouth.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>And then Francis Tredethlyn, being by nature candid as a +schoolboy newly come home for his holidays, opened his heart +<span class='pageno' id='Page_60'>60</span>to Miss Desmond, and told her a good deal about his life. +That dark chamber of his memory in which Susan’s image +loomed through the sombre shadows he kept religiously sealed +from every curious eye. But on all other subjects he was very +communicative. He did not tell Julia that he had been Mr. +Lowther’s body-servant; for there was something in that estate +of servitude which had never been entirely pleasant to him, +gallantly as he had borne himself under its serious ordeals. +He had known poverty, he told Miss Desmond, in all its worst +bitterness, and had seen his mother and father die broken-hearted, +borne down by a load of petty debt and difficulty, +when the loan of a couple of hundred pounds would have saved +them.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I felt altogether desperate one night, Miss Desmond,” he +said, “when my poor mother was at her worst, and my father +sitting in the kitchen as helpless as a child,—almost daft, as +they say in the north. I felt desperate somehow, and I went +out of the house and ran all the way to Tredethlyn Grange, and +asked my uncle Oliver to lend me the money. He laughed in +my face, Miss Desmond, and told me he hadn’t a five-pound +note in the house; and I dare say he spoke the truth, for I think +he’d have gone half crazy at the thought of a sovereign lying +idle. I went back to the farm, and—my mother died the next +day.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>He stopped, and sat for some minutes looking at Mr. Hillary’s +Axminster carpet. Julia did not say anything. She was too +perfect a tactician not to know that anything she could say +must appear commonplace at such a moment. She only drew a +long breath, a kind of fluttering sigh, expressive of the deepest +sympathy.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“My mother died, Miss Desmond,” the young man went on; +“and my father was not slow to follow her. So, having no one +in the world to care for, except—except a cousin, who had been +like a sister to me, I ran away to Falmouth, and enlisted in a +foot regiment, thinking that I had but to pin a bunch of colours +in my hat and march straight off to some field of battle. I left +Cornwall, Miss Desmond; but I never forgot that night before +my mother’s death. I’ve tried to feel grateful to my uncle +Oliver for leaving me this fortune, but I can’t. I ought to feel +grateful, I suppose; but I can’t. The memory of that night +sours me, somehow. Money seems such paltry stuff, after all, +when you think that all the golden coin in this world can’t +bring back one human creature from the grave.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Ah, yes, indeed,” Miss Desmond murmured, in her tenderest +voice.</p> + +<p class='c008'>And then, being blest with a very lively imagination, she +found herself wondering whether, if wealth had been potent to +<span class='pageno' id='Page_61'>61</span>restore the dead, and she had been possessed with wealth, she +would have very much cared to awaken Patrick Macnamara +Ryan O’Brien Desmond from his quiet slumber in a little churchyard +beside the winding Shannon. The old soldier of fortune +was better in his grave perhaps, Julia thought, philosophically. +She had begun to fight the battle of life on her own tactics, and +had no very great opinion of her late father’s strategy.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“He was very clever,” she thought, with a tender remembrance +of the Major’s best manœuvres; “but then one so often +saw through him. He always started with wrong premises, +and fancied everyone but himself was a fool: as if there could +be any merit in deceiving only stupid people.” Miss Desmond +was always wise enough to remember that the larger art of talking +well comprehends the smaller art of listening gracefully. +She was not one of those obnoxious people who talk for the sake +of talking; and who, after rattling on without a full-stop for +half an hour at a stretch, will stare vacantly at you while you +recite to them some interesting adventure, evidently thinking of +what they mean to say next, and waiting for the chance of +cutting in. Julia Desmond talked with a purpose,—not because +she wanted to talk, but because she wished to please: and now +she listened to Francis Tredethlyn with an unfailing show of +sympathy and interest, that beguiled him on to tell her more +and more. She wound and insinuated herself into his confidence +as a beautiful serpentine creature winds itself into the +heart of an apparently impenetrable forest; and before the +evening was finished Mr. Tredethlyn found himself almost as +intimate with this splendid southern Irishwoman as if she had +been his sister. She had set him completely at his ease; so +that he no longer felt out of place in Mr. Hillary’s gorgeous +rooms: and when the merchant, coming into the drawing-room +at eleven o’clock, very pale and worn-looking, asked him to dine +at the Cedars on the following Sunday, Francis unhesitatingly +accepted the invitation. He stole just one glance at Maude as +he did so; but she was in the act of exhibiting one of the newest +accomplishments of a mouse-coloured Skye terrier for the edification +of the two young loungers, and she was quite unconscious +of that shy look from Mr. Tredethlyn’s eyes. He went +to her presently to wish her good-night, and the spell of her +gracious presence dazed and bewildered him, to the cost of the +mouse-coloured terrier, upon whose silky paws he trampled in +his embarrassment; and then, essaying to shake hands in a +gentlemanly manner, he forgot what a stalwart giant he was, and +squeezed the little hand that rested so lightly in his, until Maude’s +fingers were wounded by the hoops, and clusters, and hearts, +and crescents of diamonds and opals which twinkled and flashed +upon them;—for Miss Hillary had seen the Marchioness of Londonderry’s +<span class='pageno' id='Page_62'>62</span>famous rings, and never wore any vulgar mixture of +many-coloured jewels upon her pretty white hands. Francis +lingered a little after saying good-night, helpless under the spell +of the enchantress, and then made his way somehow or other +out of the room. Ah! surely uncle Oliver’s money was not +such sordid dross, after all, when it was the golden key which +admitted him to that paradise on the banks of the Thames.</p> + +</div> + +<div class='pbb'> + <hr class='pb c001'> +</div> +<div> + +<div> + <h2 class='c003'><a id='chapter-X'></a>CHAPTER X.<br> <br><span class='fss'>COLTONSLOUGH.</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>Francis Tredethlyn went back to his hotel in Covent Garden +after that quiet dinner at the Cedars, and his mind was full of +the new images suggested by that brief glimpse of a life that +was strange to him. He had been very much interested by +Miss Desmond, and he tried to believe that he preferred her to +Maude Hillary. Had she not been kinder to him, more friendly +and familiar? and was it not reasonable that he should like her +the better of the two? He was naturally of a grateful disposition, +disposed to think meanly of his own merits; and he attributed +all Miss Desmond’s kindness to the purest promptings of +a benevolent disposition. The idea that the young lady had +regarded him from a speculative point of view, that she had +entertained any notion of possible marriage contracts and +settlements, by which she might acquire the use of his thirty +thousand per annum, never for a moment entered Mr. Tredethlyn’s +mind. He knew, in a general way, that he was admitted +to Mr. Hillary’s drawing-room because his money gave him a +kind of right to such society as that of the merchant’s household; +but he never for a moment imagined that any one of these +delightful and high-bred creatures could contemplate any contingency +by which his money might become of service to them. +Wealth and beauty, elegance and refinement, seemed to find +their natural home at the Cedars. Miss Desmond of course was +rich, like Miss Hillary.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Francis counted the days which must elapse before that +delightful Sabbath to be spent by him at the Cedars. Only +three days, and during those three days stern duty called him +away from London. Had he not declared himself ready to go +to the end of the world in search of his cousin Susan Tredethlyn? +He felt ashamed even of that one wasted day on the +banks of the Thames. He had left his hotel in the morning, intending +to despatch his City business with all possible speed, +and start immediately afterwards for Coltonslough. He had +found out all about Coltonslough by means of all manner of +inquiries; for it seemed rather an out-of-the-way place, known +<span class='pageno' id='Page_63'>63</span>to very few people as yet. Indeed, Coltonslough turned out to +be a recently discovered watering-place on the Essex coast, a +place whose shores were supposed to be washed by the salt +waves of the ocean; but the waste of waters that rolled along +the muddy shores of Coltonslough was only an ocean in its hobbledehoyhood, +and savoured too much of the Thames and Medway +to be considered a full-grown sea.</p> + +<p class='c008'>To the traveller who has grown familiar with the centre of +Africa; to that bold explorer who has spent lonely days and +nights amidst those darksome forests in which the forgotten +cities of America lie buried; to the prisoner newly released from +solitary confinement in the great prison-house of New York, so +pleasantly entitled the Tombs—to one of these a newly discovered +watering-place may not appear dull. He who has been +used to hear no more familiar voice than the distant cry of the +bittern, far away amongst the swampy wildernesses, may endure +Herne Bay and live. The criminal who has undergone a decade +of solitary confinement in the Tombs may possibly survive a +month at Southend: but to the ordinary mind there is a modern +abomination of desolation lurking in the unfinished terraces of +a budding watering-place, or in a watering-place which has put +forth its tender blossoms in the way of bow-windowed receptacles +for the concentrated bleakness of perpetual east winds, +and has been blighted in the bud.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Coltonslough was very young; it was in the most infantine +stage of watering-place existence. Speculative builders had +bought half-a-dozen plots of swamp and mud, and had erected +dismal rows of houses, which turned their backs upon one +another, and started off at right angles from one another, in +utter contempt for all uniformity. If the melancholy sojourner +at Coltonslough was of an active turn of mind, he was apt to +be tormented by a wild desire to pull down and re-arrange those +straggling terraces, between which stretched hideous deserts of +waste ground, with here and there a lurking pitfall, whence +gravel, or sand, or clay, or chalk, had been dug by unknown +persons, who seemed always digging something or other out of +Coltonslough, whereby an appearance of volcanic disruption +was imparted to a place whose chief merit had been its agreeable +flatness.</p> + +<p class='c008'>It was very young. A few straggling excursionists came on +the blazing summer Sundays, and prowled about the shore with +countenances expressive of supreme disappointment and disgust. +Half-a-dozen families of cockney children were wont to congregate +by the dismal waters every summer, provided with baskets +for the collection of shells—and there were no shells at Coltonslough,—and +further provided with wooden spades for the +undermining of sand—and there was no sand at that baby +<span class='pageno' id='Page_64'>64</span>watering-place. Families did certainly come, beguiled by representations +of impossibly cheap provisions, though the place was +in reality very expensive, for every tradesman was a monopolist +on a small scale. Families came, but no family ever came a +second time to Coltonslough; and it may be that, in the wonderful +scheme of the universe, this new-born watering-place was +not without its special use; inasmuch as it made people contented +with London. The inhabitant of Bermondsey, returning +to that locality after a sojourn at Coltonslough, found +beauties in some dismal street which until that hour had appeared +to his prosaic mind a street, and nothing more. The +denizen of Ratcliff Highway sat down amongst his household +gods well pleased with a neighbourhood which, although not +unobjectionable, was a paradise as compared with Coltonslough.</p> + +<p class='c008'>It was to this place of desolation that a newly-finished offshoot +of the railway then known as the Eastern Counties conveyed +Francis Tredethlyn. He went to look for his cousin +with no better clue to help him in his search than that one +word, “Coltonslough,” copied from the post-mark of Susan’s +letter.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“But I won’t be baffled,” the young man thought, as he sat +in the railway carriage thinking of the task that lay before +him. “Coltonslough may be a big place, but I’ll question every +living creature in it before I’ll give up the chance of finding out +something about my cousin.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Luckily for Mr. Tredethlyn’s chances, Coltonslough was a +very small place, and after walking backwards and forwards for +some quarter of an hour, before the emporium of the one +butcher; the solitary baker, who dabbled a little in the fruit +and confectionery line; and the single grocer, who was also a +linendraper, and beyond that a stationer, who had a side of +bacon hanging on one side of his door, and a piece of showy +cotton stuff upon the other, and who moreover was sole master +of the Coltonslough post-office,—Francis determined upon his +plan of action. He had thought of his cousin very constantly +in the few days before his visit to Mr. Hillary’s mansion; he +had thought of her a great deal since then, though he had not +found it quite so easy to concentrate his ideas, by reason of a +certain bright face and slender figure all in a flutter of white +and blue, that would sometimes intrude themselves upon his +meditations.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Francis knew that his uncle’s daughter had left Tredethlyn +Grange with only a few sovereigns in her pocket, perhaps not +much more than enough to defray her journey to London. +Without money, without friends, she had fled from her home, +and had not perished; but had lived to write to her father from +this dismal watering-place of Coltonslough some years after her +<span class='pageno' id='Page_65'>65</span>flight. It was clear, therefore, that in the interim she must +have either been supported by the benevolence of strangers, or +she must have earned her own living. The last hypothesis was +the more likely to be correct. Susan Tredethlyn had been educated +to habits of industry, and had no doubt confronted the +battle of life as fearlessly as any Tredethlyn should confront any +battle.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Poor little girl! she went out as a servant, I dare say,” +thought the young man. “She drudged and slaved for some +hard mistress, perhaps, while her father was adding every day +to the money that has come to me—to me—and he refused me +a couple of hundred pounds the night my mother was dying.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Mr. Tredethlyn went in at the grocer’s doorway. There was +scarcely room enough for him to pass between the bacon and +the cotton stuff, which some aboriginal of Coltonslough would +some day transform into wearing apparel. The postmaster was +chopping some very sallow-hued lump-sugar in the dusky inner-regions +of the shop; but he left off chopping, and advanced to +meet the stranger.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Francis Tredethlyn was no diplomatist; he was quite unskilled +in that peculiar science known as beating about the bush; +so he began to make inquiries respecting his cousin with as +little preface as he would have employed had he been asking for +a pound of sugar.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I’m a stranger to this place,” he said, “and I want to ask +a few questions; and I fancy, as you’re postmaster, you must +be about the likeliest person to answer them.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>The grocer rubbed his hands and smirked, in a manner that +was expressive of a general desire to do anything obliging—of +course with an eye to ultimate profit.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“A young woman—a relation of mine—left her home four +years ago this month. For nearly three years no one belonging +to her could discover where she was. At the end of that time +a letter was received from her, bearing the post-mark of this +place. I want to find out whether she is still here; or, if not, +when she left. I have only just come back from Van Diemen’s +Land, to find things changed in the place that was once my +home. So I’m groping in the dark, you see, and shall be very +thankful to any one that’ll lend me a helping hand.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Something in the frankness of his manner, the earnestness of +his face, went straight home to the heart of the Coltonslough +postmaster, who became less a tradesman, and more a man.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“It’s rather puzzling, you see, in the way you put it,” he +said, scratching his nose meditatively. “You want a young +woman who wrote a letter—or leastways had a letter posted at +this place. But, lor’ bless you, not being under Government +y’rself, you see, you’ve no notion of the dodges they’re up to +<span class='pageno' id='Page_66'>66</span>when they want to throw any one off the scent like with a post-mark. +You mustn’t fancy a person’s in this place or in that +place, because you happen to get a letter from them with such +and such a post-mark. Why, I dessay I could get a letter +posted from Jericho to-morrow morning, if I only gave my mind +to it. What might be the name of the young woman as you’re +anxious to find?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Her name is Tredethlyn,” Francis answered, hopelessly; +“but as she ran away from home, and most likely wanted to +hide herself from her relations, she may have changed her +name.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>The postmaster mused for a few moments, and then shook +his head gravely.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I never heard of no Tredevillings in Coltonslough,” he said. +“The young person was independent in her circumstances, I +suppose?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Oh no, indeed! she had very little money when she left +home. She must have worked for her living. I should think +it likely that she went out for a servant; for she was a country-bred +girl, and had been used to a hard life, though her father +was a very rich man.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>A very rich man! That part of the business sounded interesting, +and the grocer pricked up his ears.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“A country-bred young person,” he repeated, “by the name +of Tredevillane. And what might be the date of the letter with +the Coltonslough post-mark?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Francis did not know the exact date. He could only inform +the postmaster that the letter must have reached Cornwall +about eighteen months, or it might be rather less than eighteen +months, before the present time.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Cornwall!” cried the postmaster; “then the country-bred +young woman was a Cornwall young woman?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Yes, my cousin, Susan Tredethlyn, was a Cornish woman.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“A Cornish woman, and by the name of Susan! Why, if +you’d put the date of the letter a good three years back instead +of a year and a half, I should have been able to lay my hand +upon y’r cousin there and then, in a manner of speaking.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“How so?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Because I did know a young person that lived with Mrs. +Burfield, in Trafalgar Terrace. But that young person left +Coltonslough full three years ago, and I’ve never set eyes on +her since.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“But tell me all you know about her!” exclaimed Francis, +almost breathless in his eagerness. “What was she like? +Why do you fancy that she was the girl I’m looking for?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Because, in the first place, she was Cornish. I’d noticed +that her talk was different somehow from that of the folks +<span class='pageno' id='Page_67'>67</span>about here—though she was as soft-spoken as any lady bred +and born; but one day she was standing in my shop, with the +children as she had care of, taking shelter from a storm—and a +regular pelter it was too—and she stood looking out to sea +through yonder half-glass door, which it were shut for the time +being, and I made some remark about the unpleasantness of +the weather, out of politeness like—for the young woman came +very often to my shop for groceries, and with lodgers’ letters,—Mrs. +Burfield takes lodgers, and so forth;—but she looked at +me in a kind of absent way, and said ‘Oh, I like it! I like +it!’ ‘You like the storm, Miss?’ I exclaimed; and then she +answered all of a sudden, ‘Yes, I like to see it. This place +doesn’t seem so strange to me to-day as it generally does. I +have seen just such a storm as this from the moor on which my +father’s house stands, and I could almost fancy I was at home +in Cornwall.’”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“And that’s how you found out she was a Cornish woman? +I think you’ve about hit it, Mr. Sanders. I think the girl who +talked to you about the storm must have been my cousin, Susan +Tredethlyn.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Her name <em>was</em> Susan,” answered Mr. Sanders; “I’ve heard +Mrs. Burfield’s children call her so in this very shop. She +came to Coltonslough as governess to Mrs. Burfield’s young +family.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“A governess!” said Francis, with some slight sense of +relief. “She was a governess, then, and not a servant?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Oh dear no! Though Coltonslough being a very small +place, you see, sir, and most of the inhabitants being a good +deal dependent upon lodgers, which gives a kind of fluctuating +character to life, as you may say, sir, a governess in Coltonslough +might not be looked upon exactly in the same light as +elsewhere. Or, to put it plainer, sir, a governess in Coltonslough +would <em>not</em> be expected to be proud.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Oh, I understand,” Mr. Tredethlyn answered, rather bitterly. +“Yes, my cousin was a genteel drudge,—not so well paid, perhaps, +as vulgar drudges, and rather harder worked.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“The young person was always genteel, sir, even to the +extent of wearing gloves, which is not looked upon as indispensable +in Coltonslough; but in the matter of going errands +and opening the door, or carrying in a lodger’s tea-tray, at a +push, she would <em>not</em> be expected to be proud.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“And she left three years ago?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“She did, sir.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>The postmaster looked very grave as he said this,—so grave +that Francis Tredethlyn could not fail to perceive that something +worse than he had yet heard remained to be told. He +was not a man to diplomatize, nor yet to make any display of +<span class='pageno' id='Page_68'>68</span>his emotion; but his breath came a little faster for a few +moments, and then he asked abruptly,—</p> + +<p class='c008'>“How did she leave?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Mr. Sanders hesitated a little, and then said, with some embarrassment,—</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Why, Coltonslough bein’ a gossiping kind of a place, sir, +you’re apt to hear ever so many different versions of the same +thing, and it isn’t for me to say which is right and which is +wrong. I think, as it’s a long story, sir, you’d better hear the +rights of it from Mrs. Burfield.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“A long story!” repeated Francis Tredethlyn, in an undertone,—“a +long story! Ah, my poor little cousin—my poor ill-used +girl! And it seems only a little while ago when we played +together in the churchyard at Landresdale, in the sunny hour +when they let us out of school.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>It did seem to him but a very little while since he and his +cousin had sat side by side, under one of the big yew-trees in +Landresdale churchyard, dining upon some simple repast of +home-made bread and fat bacon, with a dessert of unripe apples, +in the drowsy sultriness of summer noontide. He sat for some +few minutes silently thinking of that departed time. The +memory of it seemed almost like a sharp physical pain, now +that he knew that some great sorrow, some bitter woman’s trial, +had come to his cousin. A story about her—a long story! +What story should gossiping tongues have to tell of any woman, +except a history of suffering and wrong?</p> + +<p class='c008'>He did not press the postmaster to tell him anything further: +but he said presently, in an altered voice—a voice that had lost +something of its power and ringing vibration,—</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I can get to see this Mrs. Burfield, I suppose?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Yes, sir; I make no doubt you can. She is a very genteel +person, is Mrs. Burfield, which she have known better days, +and finds herself often a little drove like with her lodgers. Her +house is Number 2, sir, in the Terrace, Trafalgar Square, fronting +sideways, and rather slantin’ like, to the sea. You can see it, +sir, from where you stand.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Following the direction of the postmaster’s extended forefinger, +Francis Tredethlyn did see a row of unfinished-looking +houses, with the inevitable seaside bow-windows, staring out of +a patch of waste ground. Why these houses, and almost all the +other houses at Coltonslough, should have slanted away from +the sea, obliging their occupants to look out upon the expanse +of waters in a sideways and sinister manner, when they might +have been built directly facing that single feature of attraction, +was a problem far beyond the comprehension of any visitor to +the infantine watering-place.</p> + +<span class='pageno' id='Page_69'>69</span> + +</div> + +<div class='pbb'> + <hr class='pb c001'> +</div> +<div> + +<div> + <h2 class='c003'><a id='chapter-XI'></a>CHAPTER XI.<br> <br><span class='fss'>A VERY OLD STORY.</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>Mrs. Burfield was a pale-faced and pinched-looking person, +hollow-cheeked and spare of figure, who in these latter days +would have inspired a stranger with the idea that she was a +rigid disciplinarian of the school founded by Mr. Banting. She +looked as if all saccharine and fatty elements had been carefully +excluded from her food; and yet, on the other hand, she had +none of the muscular energy which might be supposed to result +from a carnivorous habit. She was a depressing kind of woman, +with thin locks of whity-brown hair dangling upon each side of +her thin face, and thin garments hanging limply upon her scanty +figure, and a thin voice. There was something in Mrs. Burfield’s +appearance which called up vague images of drizzly days, and +pattens, and washing done at home, and a man in the passage +clamorous for a water-rate, and all the most unpleasant associations +of poverty.</p> + +<p class='c008'>She was a woman who prefaced every sentence she uttered +with a sigh. <a id='tn-mrtredethlyn'></a>She sighed as she admitted to Mr. Tredethlyn +that her name was Burfield, as if even that fact were in some +manner an affliction. She sighed as she told him, apologetically, +that the house was full of lodgers, so she must ask him to step +down into the little sitting-room below stairs. And yet, as she +subsisted by the letting of lodgings, the crowded state of her +house should have been a cause for rejoicing.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Francis had some slight difficulty in conveying his long legs +down the narrow little staircase, in which there was a breakneck +corner, whence awkward maid-servants were wont to precipitate +themselves headlong in company with an avalanche of +tea-things; but he managed to find his way down somehow or +other, and was ushered into a little faded-looking underground +parlour, where all the furniture seemed to have undergone a prolonged +course of Banting, and where the evidence of children’s +habitation was untidily visible in every direction. The children +were all at school, however, Mrs. Burfield told Francis with another +sigh; though, as she added directly afterwards that they +drove her next door to raving madness when they were at home, +<em>that</em> fact need scarcely have depressed her.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I had a governess for them some time back,” she said, unconsciously +approaching the subject of Mr. Tredethlyn’s business +with her, “and the young person was very useful to me in many +ways; but things have been so dull, and lodgers so uncertain, +and so close as to rent and kitchen fire, and such like, that I +couldn’t afford to engage another young person, if I could have +<span class='pageno' id='Page_70'>70</span>found anyone as reasonable and as willing as her, which wasn’t +likely.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Here Mrs. Burfield sighed again, and to her surprise found +herself echoed by her visitor.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“It is about that person, the governess, that I have come to +inquire,” said Francis. “I have reason to believe—I may say +that I am almost sure—she is my cousin; very near and very +dear to me. Pray tell me all you can about her. I am a rich +man, and I am looking for my cousin, who has a better claim +than I have to the money that has lately come to me. Pray +tell me everything; you shall not find me ungrateful. I will +make it well worth your while to help me in this matter.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>It might be supposed that Mrs. Burfield, being ground into +the very dust by the iron heel of poverty, would brighten a little +on hearing this promising speech: but she did nothing of the +kind; she only sighed rather more plaintively than usual, and +remarked somewhat irrelevantly that her boys were beginning to +grow up now, and the boots they knocked out, and the way they +wore their things at the knees and elbows, were something awful.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Tell me all you can about my cousin,” urged Mr. Tredethlyn. +“Ah, you don’t know how long I have been away from England, +and how eager I am to find that poor desolate girl. Pray tell +me all you know, and quickly.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“It’s a long story,” said Mrs. Burfield, in the very words +used by the grocer—“it’s a long story, and goodness knows the +rights or the wrongs of it; but if you are her cousin,—and you +are, I suppose⸺”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I do not think there can be any doubt of it,” Francis Tredethlyn +answered eagerly; “I do not think there can be any +doubt that the person of whom I have heard this morning was +my cousin, Susan Tredethlyn.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“The young person to whom <em>I</em> allude called herself Susan +Turner.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Yes, yes. It is only natural she should change her name. +She left her home because she had been very much persecuted +there. She was no doubt afraid of being taken back, and was +anxious to hide herself under a false name.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“If I had known that she had come to me under a false +name, never would she have slept a night in this house,” exclaimed +Mrs. Burfield, with something between a sigh and a +shudder.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“She was a good and honest girl, under whatever name she +came to you,” answered Francis Tredethlyn; “but pray tell +me the story.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>But Mrs. Burfield could not immediately comply with this +request; she had to go into the kitchen first, to see that “the +girl” was basting some mutton that was being roasted for a +<span class='pageno' id='Page_71'>71</span>very fastidious “front parlour,” who had a rooted objection to +baked meats; and then she had to go out into a little area, in +which the window looked out, and to hold parley with some person +above, who dropped her down divers loaves, and disputed +with her as to a certain “twopenny German” which had been +had, or had not been had, on the previous Tuesday. At last, +however, she was able to seat herself opposite poor Francis, and +to begin her story, from the narration of which she seemed to +derive a dismal kind of enjoyment.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“It’s close upon seven years since my poor dear husband +died,” Mrs. Burfield began; and for some little time Francis +Tredethlyn was afraid that she was going to favour him with a +sketch of her own personal history rather than that story which +he was so eager to know. “It’s close upon seven years, seven +years of toil and trouble for me, and up to that time I’d never +known what it was to want for anything in a moderate way. +He was managing clerk in an insurance office, sir, and was as +fine a looking man as you need wish to see; but he was taken—sudden—and +I was left alone to provide for four young children. +Well, sir, I tried one thing and another, but being genteelly +brought up, things seemed to go harder with me than they go +with some people; and at last an uncle, on my mother’s side, +who is very wealthy, and lately retired from the patent chimney-pot +business, gave me enough to buy a little furniture and start +fresh down here. It’s been a hard life, sir, but I shouldn’t have +so much minded that if it hadn’t been for the children. I +couldn’t bear to see them running wild upon the shore, or playing +with vulgar, dirty children on the waste ground; so, a little +better than four years ago, I thought I’d try if I couldn’t get a +person to take care of them, who’d be a kind of governess to +them, and would give me a helping hand with the house when +my lodgings were full, and wouldn’t want above a few pounds a +year, just to get herself a new gown once in a way, and so on. +Well, sir, I inquired for such a person, but lor’! you might just +as well inquire for anything you wanted on Robinson Crusoe’s +island as at Coltonslough, unless it’s queen’s-taxes and poor-rates; +and you can have plenty of them without asking. So at +last someone says to me—I think it was Mr. Sanders at the +post-office—‘Why don’t you advertise in the “Times,” Mrs. +Burfield? it’ll cost you a trifle, but you are sure to get what +you want.’ So the long and the short of it was, I did advertise +for a genteel person who would undertake to teach young children, +and make herself generally useful, in consideration of a +comfortable home and a honorarium of ten pounds per annum. +Mr. Sanders advised me to put it in the light of a honorarium, +as he said it looked more that way. A young person from the +country preferred, I stated in the advertisement; for <em>the things</em> +<span class='pageno' id='Page_72'>72</span>that lodgers from London bring down with their luggage, and then +turn round upon you and object to the bedding, had quite set me +against Londoners. Well, sir, I got a good many answers, but +the best-written letter was signed Susan Turner. So I wrote to +Miss Turner—the address was at a little coffee-house near the +Great Western terminus—and I told her that if she liked to +come down to Coltonslough for an interview, I would be her +expenses one way. Well, she came, and I found her a very +pleasant-spoken, respectable-looking young person, and I took +to her at first sight to that degree that I allowed her to come to +me without reference, she being at variance, as she told me, +<a id='tn-relationsinthecountry'></a>with her relations in the country.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“She came to you at once, then?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Yes, she stayed with me there and then, not caring to go +back to London, the strangeness of which frightened her, she +said; and she had no luggage, except a little bit of a carpet-bag, +full of things, which she sent for next day; and then by-and-by +the truth came out, that she’d run away from home. But she +had a couple of sovereigns, and she went out and bought herself +a few more things, and made herself as neat and comfortable as +she could. She didn’t make much secret of how she’d left her +home, poor girl. Her father had wanted her to marry against her +own wishes, she said, and, in her fear of him, she had run away.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Poor girl! poor girl!”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Well, sir,” sighed Mrs. Burfield, “we got on very comfortable +for some months. I never met a young person more kind +or more willing. The children took to her as if she’d been their +own sister, and she was altogether the steadiest, most industrious +young person. Things had gone pretty comfortable with me +that season; and in the autumn, quite late, going on for November, +when people don’t expect to see a single lodger in all Coltonslough, +what should I hear, one afternoon, but the wheels of a +fly, and a tremendous double knock at my door; and who should +I see when I opened it, but a tall, handsome-looking gentleman, +who walked straight into my parlour, and took the rooms off-hand, +and without so much as inquiring what the terms would +be, which, considering the haggling and beating down I’d been +accustomed to in the very best part of the season, seemed almost +like a dream.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Mrs. Burfield had warmed with her subject, and had refrained +for some time from the relief of a sigh; but she paused now to +indulge herself in a very heavy one, and then, after a general disquisition +upon the sorrows of a lodging-house keeper, went on,—</p> + +<p class='c008'>“He really was one of the handsomest, easiest-spoken gentlemen +I ever met with, and he seemed to take away one’s breath +almost; he had such a dashing kind of way with him that, if +you’d have shut your eyes, you’d almost have fancied him on +<span class='pageno' id='Page_73'>73</span>horseback, galloping away for dear life. He seemed all upon +the prance, as it were, if I may use the observation. ‘Now I +dare say you’ll want references,’ he said, ‘and if so I can’t +jive you any without putting myself to more trouble than I +care about. But you can have some rent in advance if that’ll +do; and I’ve no end of luggage, if that’ll do.’ And then he +flung himself into one of the arm-chairs, and burst out +laughing when it creaked and groaned, as it were, under him; +for lodgers have no more feeling for an unprotected female’s +furniture than if they was so many Ojibbeway Indians—and +I can’t deny that the parlour chairs were uncertain. But +I didn’t mind the strange gentleman making game of them, +somehow, for he had such a pleasant way with him, and showed +his white teeth, and looked so handsome, that he seemed quite +to brighten up the place.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“‘Well,’ he said presently, ‘can you guess why I came to +Coltonslough in the month of November?’ And of course I +told him no, I couldn’t, not having the pleasure of being +acquainted with him. Upon which he burst out laughing, +again. ‘I came here,’ he said, ‘because I was told Coltonslough +was about the dullest place upon the surface of the +earth; and I mean to stay here till after Christmas. So you may +tell the man outside to bring in my luggage, and look sharp +about it.’ Upon which the flyman brought in a couple of big +portmanteaus, and a gun-case, and a hat-box, and two of the +heaviest trunks that ever came into my passage. ‘Books, ma’am, +books, every one of them, and all as heavy as lead,’ said the young +gentleman, as the corners of the boxes went scratching and bumping +upon the paper,—and the way lodgers’ boxes do scratch and +bump an unprotected female’s paper is something awful. But for +all that I wasn’t sorry to see plenty of luggage, though the books +might have been brickbats neatly packed in hay, as has been +known to happen in this very terrace. ‘Well, ma’am,’ says the +gentleman, when his luggage had all been brought in and the +flyman paid, ‘now I can settle down comfortably. Do I look +as if I’d been plucked, do you think, ma’am?’ he asked, looking +at me very hard, and sticking his hands deep down in his +pockets, which was one of those ways of his that I venture to +call prancing. I didn’t quite catch his meaning, but I thought +he alluded to something unpleasant; so I said, ‘No, indeed, I +should think not.’ ‘But I have, ma’am,’ he answered, looking +at me in a measuring sort of way, as if I’d been a five-barred +gate, and he was just going to fly clean over me; and that +measuring look of his was another of his galloping ways. ‘But +I <em>have</em> been plucked, ma’am,’ he said, ‘as clean as any fowl that +they ever send you home from the poulterer’s. I’m a featherless +biped, ma’am. So I’ve come down to Coltonslough, being, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_74'>74</span>as I understand, the dullest hole upon the earth’s crust, and I +mean to go in a perisher.’ A ‘perisher’ was his expression. +‘And I mean to read like old boots; so you may let your servant +light me a fire, ma’am, and get me some chops; for I +suppose I must resign myself to an existence sustained upon +chops so long as I’m at Coltonslough.’”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Once more Mrs. Burfield stopped to take breath. Francis +Tredethlyn listened in silence, with a moody frown upon his +face. Already he hated this man, of whose share in his cousin’s +history he was yet ignorant. He felt as we feel sometimes at a +play, when we see the villain first appear upon the stage, and know +he is a villain, yet do not know what his special crime is to be.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Well, sir, of all the pleasant lodgers that ever darkened a +widow’s door, the plucked young gentleman was the pleasantest. +He got up early, and went to his books and papers as +soon as he was dressed, and had chops and strong green tea for +breakfast; and he sat at his books all day, till it was too dark +for him to sit any longer, and then he went and strolled up and +down the Esplanade, smoking for an hour or so; and then he +came in and had more chops and cold brandy-and-water for his +dinner, except when I took the liberty of roasting him a fowl, or +getting some other little nicety, just by way of variety; and +then, after dinner, he went to his books and papers again, and +sat up till very late, reading and writing and drinking strong +green tea.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“But my cousin Susan,” cried Francis. He was getting +impatient under this minute description of the lodger’s habits. +“What has all this to do with my cousin?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I’m coming to that,” Mrs. Burfield answered, with a sigh +that was more profound than usual. “You see, sir, it happened +at this time, being the end of the season, and Coltonslough +as empty as it could be; it happened that we were +without a servant; so myself and Susan Turner took it in turns +to wait upon the young gentleman. Not that I ever asked +her to do anything that you can call menial; but she’d take +him up his tea, and clear away his dinner things, and light his +candles for him, and such like; and knowing her to be a respectable +young woman, I didn’t keep that sharp watch over +her that some folks might have done. If she stopped ten +minutes or so in his room, talking to him, I usen’t to think +anything about it—you can hear almost every sound in these +houses, and it was quite pleasant to hear her soft voice and +his laugh ringing out every now and then. He wasn’t the +sort of gentleman you could suspect of any harm, he had such +a happy kind of way with him, as if he was good friends with +himself and all the world. He lent Susan books—books of +poetry, with all sorts of pencil-writing upon the edges of them; +<span class='pageno' id='Page_75'>75</span>and I used sometimes to fancy Susan cared more for the +pencil-writing than she did for the poetry itself; she’d sit and +pore over it so when the children were gone to bed and we +were alone in this room. Sometimes the plucked young gentleman +would come down here of an evening to fetch himself +another candle, or to tell us that he’d let his fire out, or something +of that kind; for he wasn’t a bit proud; and then, instead +of going back directly, he’d sit down and make himself as +much at home as if he had lived among us all his life; and Oh, +dear me, sir, how he would talk!—all about books and poetry, +and the foreign places he’d seen, and plays, and music, and +writers, and actors, and singers. He seemed to know everything +in the world. So, you see, one way and another, he saw +a good deal of Susan; for I found out afterwards from the children +that when he went out in the dusk to smoke his cigar he +generally contrived to meet Susan, and then he’d walk with +her and the children till it was time for them to go indoors. +She was a good girl, and she wasn’t the girl to throw herself +in his way. If they were much together, it was because he +followed her. I might have known the meaning of his sitting +in this room for hours together of a night; but he had such a +natural way of doing everything that it threw one off one’s +guard, somehow.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“The scoundrel!” muttered Francis Tredethlyn, between his +clenched teeth. “But you haven’t told me his name. I want +to know his name.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“He’d been with us more than a fortnight before ever I +asked him what his name was, and then somehow or other +the question came up, and he said his name was Lesley—Robert +Lesley; but somehow, looking back upon it afterwards, +it seemed to me as if he hesitated a little before he +said the name. Well, things went on as comfortable as possible +for more than two months, and then he went away, taking +all his luggage with him, and paying me very liberal for everything +he’d had, besides half-a-crown apiece to the children, +which at that time of year came very welcome; and of course I +took it from them immediately to go towards their new boots. +He went away; and as I thought, somehow, he’d had a kind of +a liking for Susan, and Susan for him, I half expected the poor +girl would fret a little when he was gone; but she didn’t, and +looking at her sometimes as she sat at work opposite to me, I used +to fancy there was a kind of happy smile like upon her face. +She’d been with me six months by this time, and I paid her the +little trifle that was due; and what did she do next day but go +out and spend ever so much in toys and such-like for the children, +which, as I told her, was very wrong, considering how +badly off she was for clothes. But she made no answer, except +<span class='pageno' id='Page_76'>76</span>to look at me with the same smile I’d seen so often on her face +since Mr. Lesley had gone.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Poor girl—poor, helpless, innocent girl!”</p> + +<p class='c008'>The dark frown melted into a softer expression as Francis +Tredethlyn muttered these few broken words. He was no longer +thinking of the stranger—the nameless villain of this common +story. He was thinking of his cousin Susy’s innocent face, with +the smile of girlish trustfulness upon it.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“One day, when Mr. Lesley had been gone a little better +than three weeks, a letter came for Susan—I’d need to notice +it, for it was the first she’d had since she’d been with me. +She ran upstairs directly she heard the postman’s knock, and +took the letter from him with her own hands, and stopped to +read it in the passage. She was putting it in her pocket as +she came back into this room, and her cheeks were flushed as +bright as two red roses; but she didn’t say a word about the +letter. All that afternoon she seemed in a kind of flutter, +and every now and then she would come all over in a tremble, +and drop her work in her lap. She was making some pinafores +for the boys, and I said to her, ‘Susan, what ever is the +matter?’ but she turned it off somehow, and nothing more was +said until after tea, when the children were safe out of the way, +and we were sitting alone together. Then I never did see anybody +so restless as she was, laying her work down and taking +it up again, and fetching a book—one of the books he’d left +with her,—and opening and shutting it, and then pretending +to read, but all in the same restless way; till at last she came +suddenly behind my chair, and flung her arms round my neck, +and began to sob fit to break her poor loving heart. And it +was ever so long before she could get calm enough to say anything; +but at last she cried out, ‘Oh, Mrs. Burfield, I’m afraid +I’m very ungrateful; you’ve been so good to me, and we’ve +been so happy together.’ And so we had; though I do think, +poor tender-hearted dear, she’d gone through as much on account +of the taxes as if she’d been the householder instead of me. +‘I’m going to leave you, Mrs. Burfield,’ she said; ‘I’m going to +leave you, and the children that love me so dearly. I’m going +away to be married to Mr. Lesley. I’m to go by the first train +to-morrow morning, and he’s to meet me at the station, and +at eleven o’clock we’re to be married.’</p> + +<p class='c008'>“You may guess how she took my breath away when she +told me this. But I said, ‘Oh, my dear, you can’t mean to do +anything so mad as go alone to meet Mr. Lesley, which is +little better than a stranger to you?’ ‘A stranger!’ she cried +out, ‘my darling Robert a stranger! Oh, if you only knew how +noble he is, and how much he is going to give up to marry a +poor girl like me!’ And then she went on about him as if +<span class='pageno' id='Page_77'>77</span>he’d been something better than a human creature; and having +always found him so much the gentleman myself, and so open-hearted +and frank in all his ways, I could scarcely do otherwise +than believe her. But still I urged her all I could against trusting +him. ‘Don’t go, my dear,’ I said; ‘or, if you must go, let +me go with you.’ But she blushed very red, and said, ‘Oh, Mrs. +Burfield, the marriage is to be a secret, and I promised Robert +again and again that I wouldn’t say a word about it to you or +any living creature. Only you’ve been so good to me, and I +couldn’t bear to go away without telling you the whole truth.’ +And upon this I begged her still harder not to go away; I told +her no good ever came out of secret marriages, and that there +was generally something underhand and false at the bottom of +them, that brought about all kinds of trouble and suffering +afterwards. And I told her how my Burfield married me publicly +in St. Pancras’ Church, and would have his two sisters—one +in pink and one in blue—besides the Miss Parkinses, his +first cousins, who were sweetly dressed in green and salmon, to +walk after me to the altar. But it was no more use talking to +Susan than if she’d been a stone statue, though she sat herself +on the little hassock at my feet, and kept crying one minute and +smiling the next, and talking about her darling Robert, and +kissing me, till I almost thought her brain was turned. It was +no use talking. ‘I love him so dearly,’ she said, ‘and I know +how noble and generous he is.’ And that was her only argument; +and long before daylight the next morning she went +away by the early train; and though my heart seemed bleeding +for her, I couldn’t kiss her when she said good-bye, and I +couldn’t go to the station to see her off. ‘No, Susan,’ I said, ‘if +you must go, you must, and I’ve no power to keep you back; but +I’ll be neither act nor part in your going.’ But I stood at my +window to see her go away, and I shall never forget the dark, +drizzly morning, with streaks of gray like on one side of the +sky, and white sickly-looking stars on the other, and Susan +walking across the waste ground all alone, with the rain driving +at her, and the wind beating at her, and a bit of a shabby +carpet-bag in her hand. It seemed so dreadful to think she +was going to be married like that.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“But she <em>did</em> go away?” cried Francis. “She must have +come back to you, then; for the letter with the Coltonslough +post-mark reached her father less than eighteen months ago.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I’m coming to that,” answered Mrs. Burfield. “It’s about +eighteen months ago that she came back to me, looking, Oh! so +changed, so broken down, that I hadn’t the heart to ask her any +questions. I could see that all had gone wrong, and I could +guess pretty well what kind of wrong it was. She never mentioned +Mr. Lesley’s name; and there was something in her +<span class='pageno' id='Page_78'>78</span>face that seemed to make me afraid to mention it myself. She +wanted to lodge with me, she said, and would pay me for her +lodgings. I could see that she wore a wedding-ring on her +finger, but she had no other jewellery whatever. She was +dressed in black,—black silk that had once been very handsome, +but which was rusty and shabby then. The first night she +came to me she sat up very late writing, and in the morning she +went out with a letter in her hand. She was with me more +than two months; but that was the last time I ever saw her +write. She used to be fond of reading; but now she never took +up a book, though Mr. Lesley had left a good many of his books +in the little chiffonier in the parlour, thinking to come back, as +he told me. She used to be fond of the children; but now +she never noticed them, and after a little while they seemed to +shrink away from her, as if she was strange to them somehow. +For hours and days together she used to sit in the bow-window, +watching the road from the station, as if she expected some one. +At dusk she would go out and walk upon the Esplanade, just at +the time that he used to walk with his cigar. It was the dull +season, and there was no one to notice her. At last, about the +middle of May, when the visitors began to come to Coltonslough, +she told me one day that she must leave me. I said, +‘Was it on account of the lodgings?’ because she knew I used +to raise the rent at that time of year, and I thought that +might be the cause of her wanting to go. But she said, ‘Oh! no, +no.’ She had only had one purpose in stopping so long, and +that was in the hope of seeing some one, or getting an answer +to a letter she had written; and now there was no longer any +hope of that. So I couldn’t persuade her to stay any longer, +do what I would, and she went away. She had friends in +London, she told me, who had promised to put her in the way +of getting her own living somehow or other. I kissed her this +time, willing enough, poor child, and I went with her to the +station; and I thought her pale face looked almost like a ghost’s +as she waved her hand to me from the carriage window.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“You’re a good woman!” cried Mr. Tredethlyn, half crushing +Mrs. Burfield’s skinny hands in his strong fingers,—“you’re a +good woman, and you did your best to befriend that poor girl.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Mrs. Burfield sighed, and wiped her eyes with the corner of +a rusty black-silk apron. The world had been very hard for +her; but there was a gentle, womanly haven somewhere in her +breast, and Susan Tredethlyn had taken shelter there.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“She’d been gone a little over six weeks, when an old gentleman +came one morning, and asked to see a girl called Susan. +That’s how he put it. He was very stern looking, and he threw +me all in a tremble, somehow, with his ways; but I asked him +down here, and then, little by little, he made me tell him pretty +<span class='pageno' id='Page_79'>79</span>nearly all I’ve told you. I couldn’t keep anything back from +him; he put his questions so fierce and sudden; and every time +I hesitated ever so little, he accused me of prevaricating with +him, and trying to deceive him. I could see his eyes glaring at +me like coals of fire, and his face turned of a bluish white, so +that I was almost frightened he’d drop down in a fit. But +when he’d got all the story out of me, he stood up as straight +and stern as if he’d been only twenty years old, and said, ‘No +man of my name ever knew what disgrace was until to-day; and +may the heaviest curse that ever fell upon a woman’s head come +down upon my shameful daughter!’ He stretched up his two +hands,—and I shall never forget him as he stood there with his +white hair, and the bluish white of his face, and the dreadful +glare in his eyes. Then he put on his hat and walked out of +the house, taking no more notice of me than if I’d been a stock +or a stone. I heard the front door bang to after him; and I +ran upstairs to the parlour window, and saw him walking away +towards the station; and that’s the last I saw of him.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Can you remember upon what day this occurred?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Yes, I can; for I’d had the parlour lodgers leave me the +day before. It was the 29th of June.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>The 29th of June! and on the 30th Oliver Tredethlyn had +executed that will which made Francis master of thirty thousand +a year. The young man knew now why his uncle had left +him a great fortune, and found it still more difficult to feel very +grateful to his benefactor.</p> + +<p class='c008'>There was a long pause, during which vengeful thoughts had +their full way in the breast of Francis Tredethlyn.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Can you tell me nothing more of this man,” he said presently,—“this +scoundrel, who called himself Robert Lesley?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Mrs. Burfield only answered by a hopeless shake of her head.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“He left some books, you say. Was there none among them +that would give any clue to who or what he was?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Again Mrs. Burfield shook her head.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“You’re welcome to look at the books,” she said; “there’s +plenty of pencil-writing in them, but no name or address,—only +initials.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>She knelt down before a little chiffonier in a corner by the +fireplace, and took out a few volumes, some handsomely, some +shabbily bound, and placed them before Francis Tredethlyn.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Upon the handsomely-bound books the initials “R. L.” appeared +in a gilded monogram. Four of the volumes were German +translations of some recondite classics; but there was a +fifth upon which Mr. Tredethlyn fastened eagerly. It was a +small flat volume, bound in sheepskin, and fastened with a brass +lock—a very superior kind of lock. On the cover was written +the one word “Journal.”</p> + +<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_80'>80</span>“Let me have this book,” he said; “I’ll give you a hundred +pounds for it.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Mrs. Burfield’s mouth opened with a spasmodic action, and +for once in her life she forgot to sigh.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“A hundred pounds!”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“A hundred—two, if you like. Haven’t I told you that I’m +a rich man? and you’ve been kind to my cousin. I’ll give you +the money as a free gift, for the matter of that; but I must +have this book. It’s a journal—a book in which a man writes +a history of his own life. An officer I knew in Van Diemen’s +Land used to write such a history by fits and starts. How do I +know what this may tell me about my cousin? Let me have +it. I know the book isn’t yours; but there can be no such +thing as honour or faith to be kept with a man like that. Let +me have the book.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>There was a good deal more said upon the matter; but the +end of it was that Francis Tredethlyn went back to London +with the sheepskin-covered volume in his pocket; and Mrs. +Burfield, retiring to rest after a heavy supper of cold meat and +cucumber, dreamt that she had inherited a million of money +from one of the Coltonslough tax-collectors.</p> + +</div> + +<div class='pbb'> + <hr class='pb c001'> +</div> +<div> + +<div> + <h2 class='c003'><a id='chapter-XII'></a>CHAPTER XII.<br> <br><span class='fss'>A MODERN GENTLEMAN’S DIARY.</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>Francis Tredethlyn went back to the hotel in Covent Garden +with the little sheepskin-covered volume appertaining to the +gentleman who called himself Robert Lesley, safely stowed in +his pocket. He went straight back to the hotel, ate his simple +dinner, drew the candles near him, and then, taking up a poker +from the hearth, made short work of the lock under which the +stranger had kept his secrets. All thought of those sunny +gardens and drawing-rooms at Twickenham, the glancing river, +the woody background, faded out of his mind for a time, and +gave place to one settled purpose—the discovery of his missing +cousin’s destroyer.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Yes, her destroyer! <a id='tn-burfieldstory'></a>He had only been able to read Mrs. +Burfield’s story in one fashion. The solitary departure in the +chill light of a winter’s morning, the haste and secrecy, the +lonely return long afterwards; these things seemed to the +young man to point only to one conclusion;—the simple Cornish +girl’s faith had been betrayed by the man she had so implicitly +trusted.</p> + +<p class='c008'>In the little volume before him Francis Tredethlyn hoped to +find some further clue to that sad history. He seemed to take +a savage pleasure in punishing the neat brazen lock, which he +<span class='pageno' id='Page_81'>81</span>shattered with a couple of vigorous blows from the handle of +the poker.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I wonder whether, when a man’s a villain, he writes <em>that</em> +down?” thought Mr. Tredethlyn. “I can’t fancy a scoundrel +putting the truth about himself even on paper; and if the truth +isn’t here, I can’t see how the book will help me. And yet +there must be secrets in it, too, or he’d never have had such a +lock as this. Mr. Lowther used to throw his journal about any +where, and I don’t think <em>he</em> ever did anything that was particularly +worth writing down.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>The Cornishman began to turn over the volume very slowly, +looking at the pages cautiously, almost as if he expected to see +some venomous creature crawl out from between the leaves. +The first twenty pages of the book were filled with the records +of a college life, in which brief memoranda of study were interspersed +with boating slang and turf calculations. The name of +a certain Rosa, of the King’s Head, appeared very often in these +earlier pages; and there were little epigrams about Rosa, bespeaking +the easy-going morality of a Rochester or a Sedley, +rather than the pure sentiments of a Tennyson or a Longfellow. +Altogether there was a reckless, swaggering manner about the +book, which very well corresponded with Mrs. Burfield’s description +of the prancing stranger.</p> + +<p class='c008'>But the volume had no interest for Francis Tredethlyn until +he came to the twentieth page, where the name of Coltonslough +figured for the first time.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“<i>November 8.</i>—The abomination of desolation, and just the +place for a fellow that wants to read hard and be delivered from +the society of his fellow-creatures! Arrived yesterday afternoon; +found civil landlady, stereotyped sea-side accommodation; +decrepit easy-chair, slippery horsehair cushions; no window-curtains +to speak of, and a great deal of unnecessary drapery +festooned about a rickety tent-bedstead; wash-hand-stand one +size too large for a doll, and fifty sizes too small for any civilized +being; shells and shepherdesses on the mantelpieces, and any +amount of blown-glass decanters on the sideboard. Dined on +chops, which were fried, soddened in their own grease. Must +speak to the landlady to-morrow, and insist on gridiron. The +woman who would fry chops would think nothing of human +sacrifices. A girl waited upon me, a good deal younger than +Rosa, and I think prettier—but we have changed all that, so I +didn’t take particular notice of her. Read hard till after one, +and write this before retiring to my couch,—flock, and lumpy, +for I dug my knuckles into the counterpane while examining +the apartment.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“<i>November 9.</i>—The girl, who is infinitely superior to Rosa, +brought me my breakfast. More chops, not fried, but soddened +<span class='pageno' id='Page_82'>82</span>in relic of the dark ages entitled Dutch oven, for I inquired; +and underdone French rolls. Why, O provincial taker, always +underdone? What grudge dost thou bear against thy fellow-man +that thou seekest insidiously to undermine his constitution +with thy clammy bread-stuffs? Girl, infinitely prettier than +Rosa, cleared away breakfast. Very shy, and only answers +polite inquiries in monosyllables. Asked if she was relation of +woman of house. No, no relation; nursery governess to children. +Comes from some remote district in the west of England; evidently +objects to be precise as to locality. Heard her go down +kitchen stairs with tea-things, and did <em>not</em> hear her reascend +them. Conclude that the nursery is somewhere in the cellarage. +Read hard all day. Smoke and stroll in the evening. Landlady +waited on me at dinner. Dismal change, after monosyllabic girl, +recalling Death’s-head at Egyptian banquets, but <em>not</em> crowned +with flowers. More reading after dinner, brandy-and-water cold, +and now to bed. Have ordered mattress to be put over flock. +Sleeping on knobby surface all very well now and then, but not +for a permanence. Mem: To keep my eye upon Lord Paisley’s +‘Blazing Tom,’ for the Craven meeting.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“<i>November 12.</i>—No diary yesterday or the day before. Read +with German crib: wonderful fellows those Germans for first-class +translations of classic fogies. Wrote to H. C. to put a +pony on ‘Blazing Tom.’ Walked on the Esplanade in the afternoon, +and made the acquaintance of monosyllabic Cornish girl, +infinitely prettier than Rosa. Yes, I succeeded in breaking the +ice, with considerable trouble; for I never <em>did</em> see anything feminine +so shy and frightened as this brown-eyed Cornish girl. +‘Her eye’s dark charm,’ &c. Well, there <em>is</em> something of the +gazelle in her eyes, something shrinking and fawn-like. I could +fancy the white doe of what’s-its-name looking as she looked at +me yesterday.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I went out for my smoke and stroll rather earlier than I +had intended. I saw the Cornish girl and three uncouth children +in rusty leather boots wending their way across the piece +of waste ground which forms the delicious prospect before my +window. A nice, cool, gray afternoon, with a low yellow streak +on the western horizon; a gray sea, melting into a gray sky, +with only just that one golden streak glimmering along the +edge of the waters; the sort of afternoon that reminds one of +Tennyson’s poetry. So I lighted my cigar, and went out for a +stroll. Perhaps I followed the monosyllabic girl. What do I +know? as that amiable French nuisance, who is perpetually +quoted in newspaper leaders, remarked. Enough that I went, +found the Cornish girl, very shabbily dressed, but unutterably +pretty, strolling listlessly up and down the paved walk beside +the sea. They <em>call</em> it the sea; but, Oh for the roaring breakers +<span class='pageno' id='Page_83'>83</span>of the Atlantic, or the long hoarse roar of the waves as the +German Ocean surges on broad yellow sands yonder, far away +in the North!</p> + +<p class='c008'>“And so, having lighted my cigar, I strolled up and down the +Esplanade. Of course I began to talk to the children. If children +have any use in this world—which I have been frequently +inclined to doubt—surely it must be in this matter of serving as +a means of introduction to pretty nursemaids. The children and +I were intimate in no time; the presuming little imps became, +of course, obnoxiously familiar; and, like all go-betweens, were +very difficult to shake off when done with. But I got the Cornish +girl to talk at last. She is not stupid, only shy; and she +told me a good deal, in a pretty, simple, girlish way, about her +native county, always keeping clear of all precise allusion to +locality, by the bye. She is very pretty,—I had almost written +lovely, but that adjective can only be applied to a high-bred +beauty. She is extremely pretty, and that white doe of Rhylston +(isn’t it?) look in her eyes haunted me all last night while +I was reading. Yes, it was very pleasant, that stroll upon the +Esplanade. I threw away my first cigar, and forgot to light +another, though she would have allowed me to smoke, I dare +say. It was very pleasant, that cool gray sea, and the yellow +streak fading in the west, and the flat gray shore, and the generally +Tennysonian aspect of everything. It was very much +better than the King’s Arms, and a lot of fellows drinking no +end of Bass, and chaffing Rosa. I don’t suppose this Cornish +girl knows what chaff means. I almost shudder when I think +of Rosa, with her big, round, black eyes, and the sticky little +curls upon her forehead, and the tartan neck-ribbons, and great +yellow earrings. And Oxonians have married Rosas before my +time, and have deservedly gone to the dogs thereupon. But +fifty thousand is your figure, my dear Robert,—fifty thousand, +well sounded, and no separate-use-and-maintenance humbug +either. Something in the commercial-widow line, I suppose you +will have to put up with, my poor Bob; but no greedy old +parent to interfere with the disposal of the money. The widow, +or the orphan, if a fifty thousand pounder, is the sort of article +for you, dear child.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“<i>November 13.</i>—She brought me my breakfast this morning—(what, +is she <em>she</em> already? Alas, poor Rosa!)—and I got her +to pour out my tea. I couldn’t detain her long: she was so <em>very</em> +busy, she said, and seemed painfully anxious to get away. I +made her talk a little. She has a nice low voice,—‘an excellent +thing,’ &c.! Now Rosa had a vixenish way of speaking, that +always jarred upon me, even when I was deepest down that pit +into which the fair barmaid’s admirers cast themselves. She—the +Cornish girl—is what people call a genteel young person, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_84'>84</span>with white hands and a slim waist, and a nice way of doing her +hair, and putting on her collars and cuffs. Her name is Susan +Turner, by the bye; and the children call her Susy. Could +anything sound more pastoral? Susy. The name of Rosa was +always so painfully suggestive of nigger melodies. Another +cool gray afternoon, and another low yellow line across the sky; +so I went out for my smoke at the same time as yesterday. +She was on the Esplanade with the children. She instructs +them in arithmetic, writing, and elementary smatterings of history, +geography, and grammar, after dinner, and then brings +them out for a walk till tea-time, after which they ‘retire to +rest,’ as the novelists have it, not without considerable rebellious +scuffling in the passage and on the stairs. That is the +order of the day. In the morning, I suspect, she is housemaid, +parlour-maid, needlewoman, or anything else that my landlady’s +necessities oblige her to be. But she is always equally neat and +pretty; and if she were only provided with that trifling little +matter of fifty thousand or so in the elegant simplicity of the +three per cents, I should be decidedly inclined to fall in love with +her. Does one ever fall in love with a fifty-thousand pounder, +by the bye? I rather think not. She—Susy—was not quite +so shy this afternoon, and we talked a good deal. I offered to +lend her some books. I offered to lend Rosa books once, +when I was in the lowest depths of spooneyism, and was unhappy +about her grammar—those dreadful superfluous ‘whiches,’ +and intolerable ‘as hows’!—but Rosa rejected my literature, as +dry rubbish that gave her the horrors. I had lent her the +‘Bride of Lammermoor.’ My little Susy won’t turn up that +innocent nose of hers at any sentimental story, I’ll be bound. +I’ve found an odd volume of Byron, containing ‘Parisina,’ and +the ‘Prisoner of Chillon,’ and a lot of the ‘To Thirza’ business.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“N.B.—I find that I’ve called her my little Susy! Pretty +well, as I’ve been only a week in the place. Am I going down +into another pit, I wonder—a deeper abyss than that into which +Rosa casts her victims? Poor, pretty, fawn-eyed little darling! +Take care of yourself, my dear Robert. Poor, friendless Susy! +She couldn’t well be <em>worse off</em> under any circumstances than she +is in this place, that’s one blessing: the drudge of a mistress +who is herself a slave in the bondage of poverty. I went down +to the kitchen yesterday to get a fresh supply of coals—these +people are ready to fall down and worship me because I’m not +proud, as they put it; but there are numerous orders of pride, I +think,—and I saw their dinner. Such a poor bone of mutton! +Poor little Susy! how she would open her eyes at sight of the +Richmond and Greenwich banquets that I have seen given to +persons as inferior to herself as—Hyperion to the other person. +What a frightful hindrance to original composition is that abominable +<span class='pageno' id='Page_85'>85</span>habit of hackneyed quotation!—the great newspaper-mill +going round three-hundred-and-thirteen times a year, and +only one little limited stock of quotations for all the leader-writers.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“<i>November 16.</i>—Sunday, and a wet day: saw Susan start +for church in the morning with prayer-books and children. +Strolled out with umbrella a little after twelve; found church; +unpleasant new building, smelling of damp stucco, and looking +like an edifice of soddened brown paper; waited in the porch, +patient as that young idiot in Arthur Pendennis’s poem, until +my lady came out, and conducted her home in triumph under +my umbrella, while the awkward squad of children brought up +the rear under cover of the maternal gingham. She was +obliged to take my arm; and as the walk from the church is +rather a long one, we got alarmingly intimate—when I say +alarmingly intimate, I mean that she has taken to blushing +when I speak to her. That’s the worst of these fawn-like girls; +they will blush! And when they’re pretty, the blushes are so +bewitching. And when they don’t happen to have fifty thousand +or so, what is a fellow to do? Take to his heels, replies the +stern moralist, who has sown his own wild oats twenty years +ago, and is envious of the young scatterers of to-day. I came +to Coltonslough to read; and come what may, I shall stay +there till it’s time to go back to St. B. In the meantime, +Susan is a brown-eyed angel—an angel who leads the life of a +low-bred drudge, and for whom any possible change of circumstances +<em>must</em> be a change for the better.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Of course I questioned her about the sermon as we walked +home. Take an interest in sermons, and women will believe in +you, though you were the veriest scoundrel that ever admired +Voltaire and considered the ‘Pucelle’ his <span lang="fr"><i>chef-d’œuvre</i></span>. What +a little Puritan she is! She has been to church twice every +Sunday ever since she can remember, she told me, and to +Sunday-school, and to all kinds of examinations and cross-examinations +in the vicar’s parlour. I don’t suppose <em>she</em> would +have floundered as I did, and come to grief over some of the +questions those old fogies at Oxford asked me about Biblical +history. She knows all about Saul, and David, and Jonathan, +and those everlasting wars with the Philistines, I dare say. She +is very pretty, lovely—yes, lovely, though <em>not</em> high-bred. I +sometimes fancy, though, that she must have decent blood in +her veins. I never saw a prettier little hand upon my arm than +that which rested there to-day, as I brought her home from +church. If I were—something utterly different from what I +am, I would get my degree, go in for a country curacy, and +little Susy should be my wife. But <span lang="fr"><i>noblesse oblige</i></span>: which very +elastic aphorism means, in my case, that I must marry a rich +<span class='pageno' id='Page_86'>86</span>woman, and hold my own in my native county whenever the +reigning potentate is polite enough to retire to the dusky shades +whither all earthly sovereigns must go.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Poor little Susan! pretty little Susan! When I am a +county magnate, laying down the law at the head of my table +in the great dining-room at the hall, shall I look back and think +of these days, and smile at myself, remembering that I could +be so foolish as to go out on a wet Sunday to escort a little +nursemaid along a damp clay road?</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Read hard all the afternoon: dined on an elderly fowl flavoured +with Dutch oven—a bird that must have known Coltonslough +when the first bow-windowed house was a damp +brickwork skeleton, grim and open to the howling of the winds. +Read for some time after dinner, and let my fire out. Went +downstairs to hunt up matches and firewood, and found my +landlady and Susan sitting opposite to each other at a little +table with one tallow-candle, reading pious compositions of an +evangelical tendency. They both seemed glad to see me; so I +stopped and talked to them. Susan had read the ‘Prisoner of +Chillon;’ she read it last night, and cried over it ‘fearful,’ my +landlady informed me; so we were able to talk about the poem, +and I read two or three of the fugitive pieces aloud. I used to +be rather great at the debating-club at O., and I gave them the +‘Thyrzas’ and ‘Day of my Destinys’ very strong. I could see +the tears shining in Susan’s eyes before I’d finished. I used to +recite poetry to Rosa sometimes, when I’d been taking too much +Bass, and we stood in the moonlit porch at the King’s Arms, +with the river, and the willows, and the towing-path all of a +shimmer in the silvery light; but one is apt to get tired of +reciting sentimental poetry to a young person who cries, ‘Lor’, +how funny!’ at the close of some passionate verse. I remember +thundering out that grand anathema of Tom Moore’s against +the Prince Regent, ‘Go, deceiver, go!’ and my Rosa asked me +naïvely what the gentleman had done that the other gentleman +should use such bad language to him. No, Rosa, your strong +point was not intellect. In the matter of sticky curls and large +black eyes you are unsurpassed, but the sentimental element in +your nature may be represented by zero.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“<i>November 30th.</i>—More blanks in my journal. I said we +were growing alarmingly intimate; such an intimacy is alarming +to a fellow who came to Coltonslough bent on devoting himself +to Aristotle and Aristophanes, Æschylus and Euripides, +and all that sort of people. Have been reading ‘The Clouds’ +all this morning, but found a strange undercurrent of Susan +Turner pervading that classic satire; and I mean to go in and +win this time: those fellows at St. Boniface sha’n’t be able to +laugh at my discomfiture a second time. Why were women +<span class='pageno' id='Page_87'>87</span>created for the trouble and confusion of the superior sex? I +thought I should be so safe at Coltonslough, remote from +Rosa, the Delilah of my youth; and lo! here is another Delilah, +a thousand times more dangerous—a shy, brown-eyed Omphale, +for whose sake any intellectual Hercules on this earth would +meekly hold the distaff. She is <em>so</em> pretty; and all those +modest, shrinking ways have such an unspeakable fascination +after a long course of Rosa’s sharp repartees, all redolent of the +bar and the beer-engines. I can never dissociate Rosa from the +smell of malt liquors and ardent spirits, with just a faint suspicion +of lemons and stale pork-pie. But there must be something +extraordinary about <em>this</em> girl, for her vulgar surroundings +do not seem to vulgarize her. I don’t mean that she is one of +nature’s duchesses, or any humbug of that sort. I have no +belief in nature’s nobility, and to my mind a duchess is a +person who has been cradled in Belgravia, whose long-clothes +were flounced with <span lang="fr"><i>point d’Alençon</i></span>, and to whom the wrong +side of Temple Bar would be as strange as the centre of Africa. +I should by no means care to see my little Susy in a London +drawing-room; but I can fancy her domiciled in some rustic +cottage in the lake district, a patient Wordsworthian little +handmaiden, waiting upon and worshipping her husband, and +getting him cosy breakfasts, with silvery trout broiled to perfection, +and mushrooms newly-gathered from the neighbouring +plains. If I were only an embryo curate, with neither expectations +nor ambitious desires, I scarcely think that I could find +a better wife than this simple gazelle-eyed maiden; but⸺ Oh, +that terrible monosyllable! The history of all the world +seems made up of buts and ifs.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“My afternoon stroll upon the Esplanade has grown into an +established thing. Sixpence judiciously bestowed upon the +children despatches those young abominations scurrying over +the waste ground to an emporium which they call ‘the shop,’ +whence they return after an interval, embrowned and sticky +with the traces of ginger-bread and barley-sugar. In the meanwhile +Susan and I are alone on that dreary Esplanade. What +is it Byron says about youth, and solitude, and the sea? Well, +that sort of thing <em>is</em> rather a dangerous combination; and I +begin to think that if I want to redeem my character at St. B., +I shall be obliged to take myself and my books away from Coltonslough. +‘Breathes there the wretch with soul so dead,’ who +could sit in that dingy parlour, coaching himself in the classics, +while one of the prettiest girls in all the British dominions is +walking up and down the Esplanade opposite his window, and +thinking of him? Yes, she thinks of me, and expects me, +when that yellow streak begins to glimmer in the west. I have +seen her head turned towards my window; and then I pitch +<span class='pageno' id='Page_88'>88</span>my friend Sophocles into the remotest corner, and go out for +my afternoon stroll.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“<i>December 10.</i>—Yes, the dismal confession must be written, +or the account between R. L. and self closed for ever. I am +in love—seriously, desperately, unreasonably in love—with a +young person whose social status is something between that of +a parlour-maid and a nursery-governess. Could she be worse +off than she is now? Could any turn in the wheel of fortune +leave her in a lower place than that she now occupies? +Scarcely! I don’t believe in those dismal histories which the +Minerva Press was wont to disseminate. Susan is just the +sort of girl to fall on her feet. Those shy, sensitive creatures +always know how to take care of themselves, and often do remarkably +well in life. It’s your dashing, high-spirited, strong-minded +girl who goes to the bad. Goodness knows I’m not a +bad-hearted fellow. I can’t look at such a girl as Susan without +worrying myself about her future career. There’s scarcely +any sacrifice I wouldn’t make—short of the sacrifice of my own +prospects—in order to insure her welfare. Yes, the little +stranger, let into my dwelling unawares, has strung his bow +and twanged his arrow home to my heart. I am really in love +this time. I used to feel savage with those St. B. fellows when +they talked nonsense to Rosa: but I think I should annihilate +the man who so much as looked at this girl. Yes; I am prepared +to make any sacrifice—short of the destruction of my +own prospects. Your really rich man, or your penniless beggar, +can afford to make a fool of himself; but I stand just in that +middle distance between the golden lands of plenty and the +sterile plains of poverty, in which a man must needs be peculiarly +circumspect.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“<i>17th.</i>—I have broken the ice at last. What a little +Puritan she is! And yet I know that she loves me, with the +regular Haidee or Zuleika sort of devotion: would like to +kneel at my feet and offer me tiresome flowers, when I was +absorbed in the classic fogies, and all that sort of thing. A +long interview on the Esplanade this afternoon. I beat the +ground with the greatest discretion; for it would have been +the easiest thing in the world to frighten her. It must be a +marriage—a <span lang="la"><i>bonâ fide</i></span> marriage, secret, of course. She won’t +object to that. But upon the other point I can see she would +be inflexible. Those quiet people are always obstinate. Ay +di me, my pretty Susy, I fear that you and I must say Good-bye. +And I am really over head and ears in that dismal pit. I +am most absurdly fond of her; that’s the worst of it. Yes, +we must say Good-bye. The catechisms in the rector’s parlour +and the Sunday-school have done their work, and Susan Turner +will be a drudge all her life rather than surrender those ridiculous +<span class='pageno' id='Page_89'>89</span>prejudices which it is the fashion to implant in the minds +of rustic youth. <span lang="it"><i>Addio</i></span>, my pretty Susan. I cannot imagine +anything more delightful than our quiet walks in the cold +gray twilight; I cannot conceive any eyes—out of a Murillo—so +beautiful as those brown orbs of yours—orbs is the proper +phrase, I think, when a fellow is sentimental;—but the price +demanded is too heavy. One may buy gold in too dear a +market; and ten years hence, with blighted prospects, and +half-a-dozen children, I might grow tired of my white doe of +what’s-its-name, and fancy a blue-eyed Greuze—how wonderful +that man was in his manipulations of violet-hued pupils +swimming in enamelled whiteness!—instead of my Murillo.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“<i>20th.</i>—I began to pack my books the day before yesterday, +and yet I linger. ‘Tell me, my heart, if this be love!’ +Not much doubt about it, I fear. But only a day or two more, +and then—and then good-bye, pretty puritanical Susan, with +your Sunday-school morality, and all that innate obstinacy +peculiar to quiet women. I shall have forgotten her in six +weeks, I dare say. But then that consolatory idea of the future +oblivion won’t lessen the present anguish of parting. We may +forget all about a gigantic triple-pronged carious tooth when +we turn our back upon the dentist’s torture-chamber, but the +pang of extraction is none the less. I shall forget her, and +some other eyes will haunt me in my sleep; but there must be +a long blank interval of weariness before the Lethean waters +can wash away that artless face. I have plumbed her simple +mind to its uttermost depths, and have found nothing like deception +or pretence. So we must part. I to go forth and do +my best at opening the great oyster; she to remain here as my +landlady’s drudge and companion. Poor little thing! I hope +she’ll miss me when I go. I shouldn’t like to think of her +enjoying a flirtation with some new lodger—a city clerk, who +would wear ready-made clothes bought somewhere in Shoreditch, +and smoke cheap Manillas. No, I shouldn’t like to +fancy her happy when I am gone. It wouldn’t have been +pleasant to the Corsair to imagine Medora flirting with mercantile +mariners in his absence.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“<i>21st.</i>—I have packed all my books, except a few German +cribs. Perhaps it was as well, for my studies had grown very +desultory. How can a fellow read hard when there is a pretty +girl in the case, and he has been so profound an idiot as to fall +in love with her? But ‘it is written’, as the followers of the +prophet observe, and I must go. I have told Susan. We had +a very affecting interview yesterday. How the poor little girl +cried! And I hate to see a woman cry; it’s so excruciating to +the feelings of a good-hearted fellow; and the prettiest woman’s +nose is apt to get just a <em>leetle</em> red when ‘the tears come trickling +<span class='pageno' id='Page_90'>90</span>down, down, down.’ O Susan, that I should quote that +familiar ballad of Lord Lovell when I write of your sorrow! +But I suppose there is something of the <span lang="fr"><i>persifleur</i></span> in my nature, +for I don’t often find myself very earnest about anything. +And so we walked up and down the Esplanade; she crying, and +I talking. I flatter myself I talked rather well. There was +just that dash of excitement about the business which makes +a fellow talk well. But my eloquence was all of no avail; +Alfred de Musset, Byron, George Sand, Rousseau, and Thomas +Moore, all combined, cannot prevail against the tenets of the +Sunday-school; and so we are to part, ‘in silence and tears, +half broken-hearted, to sever,’ &c., unless I were prepared to +sacrifice my prospects and put the fatal noose about my neck.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Bah! it would be too absurd, too utterly preposterous. +Such things have been, and have always resulted in pretty +much the same way. Your poet Shelley gets expelled from +the University because he can’t keep his convictions to himself, +marries a simple rustic maiden, grows tired of her, and falls in +love with someone else, whereon rustic maiden drowns herself, +whence unspeakable <span lang="fr"><i>esclandre</i></span> and confusion.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“<i>January 2nd.</i>—No, the thing cannot be done; the sacrifice +would be too great. The days of the Minerva Press are past. +The yellow post-chaise, the lonely country inn, the college +friend who is introduced in a surplice, and acts as clergyman—alas! +are not these exploded with the dark ages? Were +there ever any such marriages, I wonder? or were they only figments +of the romancer’s brain? At any rate, anything of that +kind must be impossible nowadays. And then a man must be +a consummate scoundrel who could devise such a plot. I don’t +pretend to the Sunday-school species of morality; but <i>nemo +repente fuit turpissimus</i>, as Juvenal has it. I am not so bad as +that.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“<i>5th.</i>—She is very unhappy; and how hard it seems to +leave her to this drudgery and desolation—Coltonslough, and +my landlady, and my landlady’s children, all the year round! +And she is just the ‘creature not too bright or good,’ &c.; the +very woman of all others for a cottage in the lake districts, or a +Devonshire fishing-village, or any pretty out-of-the-way haven, +where a man might take his rest. And yet I must leave her +here, baffled entirely by the Sunday-school precepts with which +her shallow mind has been imbued. I have no time to play the +Lovelace, and I don’t want such a victory as his. I have had +tiresome letters from home. They will expect me to get my +degree; and I am free to confess that my reading since I have +been at Coltonslough has been the merest moonshine. Decidedly +I must leave this place by to-night’s express. ‘Better to die by +sudden shock,’ &c.: and as for Susan, it is only a natural chapter +<span class='pageno' id='Page_91'>91</span>in such a girl’s history. She will break her heart, and then +marry a small tradesman, who will give her a Paisley shawl and +a black-silk gown to wear on Sundays.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“<i>6th.</i> Another day, and I am still here. I was awake all +last night, thinking of all manner of possibilities, or perhaps +impossibilities. The yellow post-chaise and the college friend +in a surplice are obsolete absurdities; but how about a marriage +before the Registrar? Is there anything so very impossible in +a marriage before the Registrar, which shall not be, say, <em>too</em> +binding? Why not a marriage before the Registrar, between +eight and twelve in the forenoon, with open doors, in the presence +of two witnesses, &c.? You walk into an office, very +much like any other office, and you see an official very much +like any other official, and there is a trifling formula, and a little +signing and countersigning, and so on, and the business is done. +But even about this there would be a good deal of trouble, and +the college friend would still be necessary, though not in a surplice—and +the witnesses—and the office. <em>Is</em> the game worth +the candle? Am I really so desperately in love? And then, +again, supposing the game worth the cost of illumination, these +sort of games are so apt to be dangerous; and awkward stories +crop up against one in after-life; with perhaps Chancery suits, +and so forth. No, it is too much trouble. It will be better for Susan +and I to shake hands, like sensible people, and say Good-bye.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“<i>7th.</i>—A very long talk with Susan. I told her that we +must part; our roads in life lying separate, and so on. Poor +child! her grief was something very terrible. We had wandered +out to some lonely ground beyond the Esplanade, leaving those +abominable children to disport themselves as they pleased. We +sat down upon a little bank at the edge of a great ploughed +field, with the grey sea before us. The poor child sobbed as if +her heart would have broken. I am no deliberate Lovelace, but +I suppose I have in this instance pursued the prey with something +of a Mexican trapper’s intensity. I never meant to be in +earnest; but have been drifted, as it were, by the chances of the +situation; and people who let lodgings at dull watering-places +really should not employ such pretty parlour-maids. Poor, +tender-hearted little Susy! I never thought she could have +grown so fond of me, or that a little sentimental spouting, and +a few pretty speeches, could have gone so far. I should have +been a callous wretch if I had not been touched by her grief; +and I was inexpressibly touched; so much so that I flung all +good resolutions to swell the general heap of paving material +for the halls of Pluto, and told my Susy that there was an +alternative for this miserable parting if she would—trust me—and +consent to a marriage before the Registrar.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“She will trust me. I explained to her the nature of the +<span class='pageno' id='Page_92'>92</span>ceremonial I proposed, and how all unnecessary publicity and +the ruin of my prospects might be avoided thereby. And +then the poor little thing burst out with a whole string of +romantic protestations.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Did she want me to sacrifice my prospects? Oh no, no! Did +she want to be acknowledged before the world as my wife? No, +a thousand times. She knew very well that she was too ignorant +and humbly educated to support such an honour. She only +wanted to know herself that she was my wife, my own lawful +wife, united to me by the laws of heaven and earth.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“The laws of heaven and earth as administered in a Registrar’s +office. I have cast prudence to the winds, and am now +committed to the step which I only dreamed of as a possibility +last night. I have a sort of foreboding that the business will +bring me into trouble; but having gone so far now, am I to +recede? And then I am really desperately in love with this +Cornish girl.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“How is it to be done? These things seem so simple when +one contemplates them in a dreamy reverie engendered by +tobacco-smoke. It will be rather a complicated business, I fear; +and the college friend, that is the grand question. Who is to +be the convenient college friend? Perhaps I had better sleep +upon it.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“<i>8th.</i>—After a world of serious consideration, I can think of +no one but my brother. He’s a selfish beggar, who’d scarcely +wet the tips of his fingers to save an entire ship’s crew from +drowning; but he owes me money, and ought to go through +fire and water to serve me. At any rate he is not troubled by +any scruples or compunctions of the Sunday-school order; and +then he’s a clever fellow, and on the spot. I’ll go up to town +to-morrow and sound him about it.”</p> + +<p class='c007'>There was no more. The journal ended here; and Francis +Tredethlyn sat staring at the last half-page, sorely puzzled as to +how he was to read that broken history.</p> + +<p class='c008'>That the lines before him had been written by a heartless +profligate he could scarcely doubt, little as he had been accustomed +to sit in judgment on his fellow-men. But he was slow +to understand the full measure of the writer’s depravity. A +more subtle mind than his was required to read the hidden +meaning of that carelessly-written diary. Francis Tredethlyn +only understood that his cousin had fallen into the hands of a +selfish worldling, who had been fascinated by her pretty face, +but who set his own welfare and his own happiness before all +thought of her love or sorrow.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“He meant to marry her,” thought the young man; “thank +heaven for that. No matter how secret or clandestine the +<span class='pageno' id='Page_93'>93</span>marriage may have been, it shall be my task to find Susan, and +to make that marriage public.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Mr. Tredethlyn went early the next day to Gray’s Inn, +there to hold a solemn consultation with the chief of that firm +which had transacted all Oliver Tredethlyn’s legal affairs during +a period of some forty years.</p> + +<p class='c008'>To Mr. Kursdale, Francis told all that he had been able to +discover of his cousin Susan’s history; and to the lawyer’s +hands he confided the manuscript volume surrendered to him +by Mrs. Burfield.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“You’ll be able to make more out of it than I can, Mr. +Kursdale,” he said. “Heaven knows I read it carefully; but I +can only understand that the man is a scoundrel, and that it +was my cousin’s evil fortune to love him. I wonder how it is +that a simple innocent country girl always does fall in love with +a scoundrel, if he has only got a handsome face and a smooth +tongue?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>The next day was Saturday, and Francis Tredethlyn’s +thoughts were strangely divided between the contemplation of +his cousin’s unknown wrongs, and the expectation of a day in +the sunny gardens and drawing-rooms at the Cedars. Late +in the evening there came a letter from Mr. Kursdale, the +solicitor,—</p> + +<div class='nf-center-c0'> +<div class='nf-center c009'> + <div>“<i>Yourself and Another.</i></div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c010'>“<span class='sc'>Dear Sir</span>,—After a very careful perusal of the MS. volume +intrusted to me by you yesterday, I regret to say that I can +only come to one conclusion respecting the intentions of the +writer.</p> + +<p class='c010'>“I believe that it was this person’s design to involve Miss +Susan Tredethlyn in a fictitious marriage, which should be, in +fact, no marriage at all.</p> + +<p class='c010'>“A marriage before the Registrar would have been as entirely +valid, if duly performed, as any religious solemnization.</p> + +<p class='c010'>“I conclude, therefore, that the writer of the MS. diary contemplated +a sham ceremony, in the presence of some person, +falsely representing himself to be the Superintendent Registrar.</p> + +<p class='c010'>“I much fear that your cousin’s simplicity would render her +likely to be the dupe of any such plot.</p> + +<p class='c010'>“Should you wish to communicate with me further on this +subject, I shall be glad to wait upon you at any time you may +appoint.</p> + +<p class='c010'>“I am, dear Sir, yours very obediently,</p> + +<div class='c011'>“<span class='sc'>James Kursdale</span>.”</div> + +<p class='c007'>“A mock marriage!” thought Francis Tredethlyn. “Yes; +I understand it all now. There was an insolence in his manner +<span class='pageno' id='Page_94'>94</span>of writing of my pretty Susy that stung me to the very heart. +No honest man ever wrote like that of any woman; <em>no</em> man +would write like that of a woman whom he meant to make his +wife.”</p> + +</div> + +<div class='pbb'> + <hr class='pb c001'> +</div> +<div> + +<div> + <h2 class='c003'><a id='chapter-XIII'></a>CHAPTER XIII.<br> <br><span class='fss'>CAUGHT IN THE TOILS.</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>Francis Tredethlyn spent the bright summer Sunday afternoon +and evening at the Cedars. Mr. Hillary generally filled +his house with company on the day of rest; and hard-working +commercial magnates, and lazy West-end loungers, were alike +glad to spend their Sabbath amongst the flower-beds and trellised +walks, under the shadow of black spreading cedars, or on +the terrace by the river. The merchant’s house was only +another Star-and-Garter, where the <span lang="fr"><i>menu</i></span> was always irreproachable, +and where one escaped that little bugbear so common +to the close of all social entertainments, and known by the +vulgar name of “Bill.” Mr. Tredethlyn found the house full of +strangers, and Miss Hillary very difficult of approach. He was +not allowed to feel embarrassed, however; for Julia Desmond +always happened to be in his neighbourhood, and he found her +society as charming as on the previous occasion. She was so +very handsome, and there was really something so bewildering +about her dark eyes, and white teeth, and fluent talk upon every +possible subject, that the young man—who had never been accustomed +to the society of well-educated women—may be forgiven +if he admired her. He admired her, but not as he admired +Maude Hillary. No thrill of half-fearful rapture stirred +his pulses as he stood by Julia’s side upon the moonlit terrace, +looking down at the rippling water, darkened by the tremulous +shadows of the trees; but the faintest flutter of Maude’s airy +flounces stirred his soul like a burst of music.</p> + +<p class='c008'>But she was only a beautiful, far-away creature, who never +could have any part in his destiny. He acknowledged this in +a half-despairing way; and then resigned himself to look at +her only now and then from a distance, and to behold her +always surrounded by those elegant amber-whiskered loungers, +whose admiration of her loveliness never made them awkward +in her presence; who could approach her without suffering +from a sudden determination of blood to the head; who could +hover near her without trampling half-a-yard of her lace +flounce to destruction under the savage tread of a clumsy foot.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Those fellows are fit to talk to her,” he thought; “they’ve +been brought up to it, I suppose: but I’m better out of her +way; for even if she speaks to me, I make a fool of myself +somehow, and feel as if I couldn’t answer her. I get on better +<span class='pageno' id='Page_95'>95</span>with Miss Desmond; she’s so kind, and she doesn’t seem to +mind my being awkward and stupid.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Yes, Miss Desmond was very kind to the simple-hearted +Cornishman. So kind is Madame Arachne to a big blundering +blue-bottle fly that hovers ignorantly about the net she has +spread for him. Julia had angled very patiently for the last +two years in the great matrimonial fisheries, and had brought +several fish to land, only to lose her hook and leave them to +gasp and perish on the bank when she discovered their quality. +But now, for the first time, she knew she had a prey worthy her +skill and patience. She had taken good care to ascertain that +Francis Tredethlyn’s thirty thousand a year was no mere figment +of a gossip’s brain, and she set herself deliberately to +work to win this prize so newly offered for competition in the +matrimonial market. Mr. Hillary interested himself in the +young man’s fortunes, and gave him some advice about the +management of some of his Uncle Oliver’s numerous investments. +This, of course, necessitated interviews at the merchant’s +offices in Moorgate Street; and no interview ever came +to a close until Francis had received hospitable Mr. Hillary’s +invitation to “run down” to Twickenham.</p> + +<p class='c008'>The young man seemed always running down to the Cedars. +He slept there sometimes, in a pretty chintz-curtained chamber, +all rosebuds and maplewood, and from whose jasmine-festooned +windows he looked out upon the river—the perpetual river, now +shimmering in the moonlight, now twinkling and glancing in +the sunshine, but always “a thing of beauty and a joy” for the +people who dwell upon its banks.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Yes, he was always riding down to the Cedars. He had departed +very little from his simple habits; but he had bought a +couple of horses at Tattersall’s—such horses as a man who +has been used to ride across wild moorland districts without +saddle or stirrups from his earliest boyhood knows how to +choose. He kept the horses at livery near his hotel, and he +hired a smart young groom to attend to them, and even to ride +behind him on occasions.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Miss Hillary grew accustomed to the young man’s presence, +and greeted him kindly when he came; but then she had so +many friends, such enthusiastic female adorers in crisp muslins, +who found the millionaire’s daughter the dearest darling in the +world, and were always eager to pour some new confidence into +her willing ears. She had so many friends, so many admirers, +that Francis Tredethlyn always found her more or less difficult +of approach. And in the meanwhile there was Miss Desmond +perpetually smiling upon him, and talking to him, and listening +to him.</p> + +<p class='c008'>So things went on very pleasantly for Mr. Tredethlyn, until +<span class='pageno' id='Page_96'>96</span>one day his eyes were very suddenly opened to a fact that well-nigh +overpowered him. He was lounging on the terrace one +sunny afternoon, and, for a wonder, Julia Desmond was not by +his side. She had been summoned into the midst of a conclave +of pretty girls holding solemn discussion with Maude Hillary on +the lawn. Francis was looking down at the water, as it was his +habit to do, and thinking. He was leaning against the balustrade +of the terrace, all amongst the foliage which had been so +bright when he had first come to the Cedars, but which was +brown and withered now: he was watching the dead leaves +slowly drifting in the wind, and dropping one by one into the +water; and he was thinking of his cousin Susan. Nothing +had yet come of his search for her. Perhaps he had left the +matter too much in the hands of his lawyers, trusting to their +legal acumen for the unravelment of the tangled skein. It may +be that he had been a little too much at the Cedars, absorbed +in the delights of a new existence. This afternoon, watching +the drifting leaves upon the river, the gold and crimson tints of +autumn on the woodland and on the hill-side, Francis Tredethlyn +remembered how the time had slipped by him, and how +little nearer he was to the discovery of Susan Tredethlyn’s fate +than when he had listened to Martha’s story in the dreary +Cornish grange, and had sworn to go to the end of the world in +search of his cousin. There was some feeling of remorse in his +mind as he thought of the past three months, the idle days +in that luxurious river-side retreat, the billiard-playing and cigar-smoking, +the pleasant rides to and fro in the dewy evenings, +with genial gentlemanlike companions, who thought him a good +fellow, and very rarely laughed at his ignorant simplicity.</p> + +<p class='c008'>He was roused from his reverie now by one of these young +men, Mr. Montagu Somerset, of the War-Office, the scion of a +noble house, the presumptive heir to nothing a-year, and one of +the most hopelessly devoted of Maude Hillary’s adorers.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Why, Tredethlyn,” exclaimed the young man, without +removing a gigantic cigar from between his lips, “how dismally +you’re staring at that water! It looks as if you were +contemplating <span lang="la"><i>felo de se</i></span>, b’ Jove. What’s the row, old boy? +and how do you happen to be alone? Where’s the <span lang="fr"><i>fiancée</i></span>?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I—I was thinking of some family matters, not very +pleasant ones,” Mr. Tredethlyn answered, simply.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“But where’s the <em>future</em>?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“The what?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“The <em>future</em>—Mrs. Francis Tredethlyn that is to be—the +Desmond. Why, has the lovely Julia deserted her Frank? +Why, you dear, simple old baby, how you blush! Is it a +crime to be in love with a handsome girl? I only wish your +young affections had fixed themselves on one of my five sisters—all +<span class='pageno' id='Page_97'>97</span>most amiable girls, but without so much as a spoonful of +what our lively neighbours call <span lang="fr"><i>potage</i></span>.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Francis Tredethlyn stared aghast at the young official.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Why, you don’t suppose—you don’t think that I—that +Miss Desmond—that⸺”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“You know those silversmiths on the Boulevards—no, you +don’t know Paris, by the bye. Well, dear boy, there are Parisian +silversmiths who make a great display in their shop windows +by means of a concatenation of table-spoons and a strong flare +of gas; but I doubt if in all Paris there was ever such a notorious +case of spoons as the present; and I don’t blame you, my +dear Tredethlyn. If I were not Alexander, I would be the +other person. If I were not madly and hopelessly in love with +blue-eyed Maude, I should fling myself at the feet of dark-eyed +Julia: such teeth, and such a generally regal <span lang="fr"><i>tournure</i></span>, with +thirty-thousand a-year, ought to make a sensation. Frank, I +congratulate you! Bless you, my boy, and be happy!” Mr. +Somerset wrung his friend’s hand with effusion.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“But, my dear Somerset—but, upon my word and honour,” +cried Mr. Tredethlyn, in extreme terror and perplexity, “Miss +Desmond has been very kind to me; and feeling myself out of +place here, I’ve been grateful for her kindness; but, as I am an +honest man, not one word has ever passed between us upon any +but the commonest subjects; and I am sure that neither she +nor I have the slightest idea of⸺”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Oh, you haven’t, eh?” asked Montagu Somerset, taking his +cigar from his mouth, and staring at it in a contemplative +manner, as he knocked away the ash; “never mind about Miss +Desmond; <em>you</em> haven’t any idea of making her mistress of yourself +and your property, real and personal, eh? You admire her +very much, and are very grateful to her for being civil to you, +and so on, but you have no idea of making her an offer of +marriage?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“No more than I have of making you such an offer.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Then in that case,” replied Mr. Somerset deliberately, “all +I have to say is to this effect: look out for squalls; when you +are coasting on a shore renowned for its quicksands, you’d +better beware of any strange light you may see ahead, for the +illumination generally means danger. When you meet with +such a girl as the Desmond, don’t trifle with her. Of course it’s +very pleasant to ride, and drive, and play billiards, and loiter +through a summer month or so with a handsome girl, meaning +nothing serious all the time; and it <em>is</em> to be done with impunity, +if you are careful in your selection of the young lady. But I +don’t think Julia Desmond is exactly the sort of girl you should +try it on with. There are men in our place, apoplectic old +fogies in starched neckcloths and no end of waistcoat, who +<span class='pageno' id='Page_98'>98</span>knew the Desmond’s father; he was a south-of-Ireland man +and a notorious duellist. They say that Julia inherits his eyes +and teeth.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“But you don’t mean to say that I’ve done Miss Desmond +any wrong?” cried Francis. “How should I be otherwise than +grateful to her when she was kind to me, and set me at my ease +somehow, and made me feel a little less like an Ojibbeway +Indian suddenly let loose amongst fashionable people? How +should I imagine that she would think of me except as—as +Miss Hillary thinks of me?” His voice grew low, and an inexpressible +change came over his whole manner as he mentioned +Maude Hillary’s name. “They know my history, and that this +time last year I was a private in a foot regiment, with nothing +higher to hope for than an extra stripe upon my sleeve.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Miss Hillary is one person and Miss Desmond is another,” +Mr. Somerset replied, with just the least suspicion of <span lang="fr"><i>hauteur</i></span>. +“The lovely Julia’s face is her fortune, you know, dear boy. +You ask me if you’ve been wrong; and I tell you frankly, as +a gentleman, that I think you have. A man can’t be exclusive +in his attentions to a woman without other people perceiving +the fact, and forming their own conclusions thereupon. I know +everyone who comes here regards the matter as settled, and I +heard Maude say the other day that she thought you a very +good fellow—<em>she</em> didn’t say fellow,—and would be delighted to +see her dear Julia so pleasantly established.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Did she say that?” cried Francis, with a dusky blush +kindling under his dark skin; “did she speak well of me? +And if—if she should think I have done Miss Desmond some +kind of wrong by usurping her society and setting people talking +about us—if <em>she</em> should think me mean or base⸺”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Montagu Somerset interrupted Mr. Tredethlyn by a long +whistle.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Oh! the wind’s in that quarter, is it?” he exclaimed; +“you’re down in that list; then in that case I’ve nothing more +to say. The river flows at your feet, my dear friend; and I +dare say there’s a rope for sale somewhere in the villages of +Twickenham or Isleworth.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>The young man sauntered away, leaving Francis with his +arms folded on the balustrade, and his face darker than it had +been, even when he had thought remorsefully of his missing +cousin.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Miss Desmond had not made such very bad use of her time. +With consummate tact she had contrived to detain Francis +Tredethlyn at her side in all those pleasant walks, and drives, +and boating excursions, which made up a great part of life at +the Cedars; and it had seemed that the young man, of his own +option, devoted himself to Colonel Desmond’s daughter. Julia +<span class='pageno' id='Page_99'>99</span>had been clever enough to set the simple Cornishman entirely +at his ease in her presence, and having done that, all the rest +followed naturally enough. It was to Miss Desmond that +Francis Tredethlyn confided his opinions upon every subject; it +was to Miss Desmond that he applied for enlightenment when +his ignorance fenced him about with cloud and darkness, and +seemed to shut him out from the people round him. When the +visitors at the Cedars were busy in the animated discussion of +some new book whose name Francis had never heard, and whose +contents would have been utterly beyond his untrained understanding, +Julia would explain to him the nature of the volume, +simplifying the subject with a dexterity that was all her own, but +never humiliating her companion by any display of her own superiority. +If art was the subject of discussion, Julia insidiously +demonstrated to the Cornishman the merits and demerits of any +given picture. So Francis Tredethlyn had been considerably +benefited by three months of intimacy with a handsome and +accomplished woman, and he began to feel something like a +well-disposed Maori who had been admitted into familiar intercourse +with a family of friendly settlers.</p> + +<p class='c008'>But all this time, in spite of handsome, dark-eyed Julia’s +kindness, in spite of all the benefits to be derived from intimate +relations with such agreeable people as the guests who were +always to be found at Twickenham, the one charm that had held +the young man constant to the Cedars,—like some spell-bound +knight in a fairy story, who cannot leave an enchanted castle, +though he knows that peril and ruin lurk within its walls,—the +one supreme influence that had taken possession of Francis +Tredethlyn had been the presence of Maude Hillary. From +first to last his faith had never wavered, but his devotion had +been the servile worship of an idolater, who was prepared to +find his divinity hard and merciless. No thought of ever being +anything nearer to Maude Hillary than he now was entered the +young man’s mind. She was beautiful, amiable, loving,—for +had he not seen her with her father? She was all that is most +lovely and adorable in womankind: but she was not for him. In +her presence his ignorance and awkwardness seemed to weigh +him down to the very dust; and yet she was never unkind to +him, or supercilious, or insolent. She was only indifferent: but +Oh, the bitterness of her indifference! the anguish of the slavish +worshipper who prostrates himself before his idol, and knows +all the while that it is stone, and cannot have pity upon him! +Again and again Francis Tredethlyn had determined that he +would come no more to the Cedars. He would call on Mr. +Hillary in the City some morning, and thank him for his hospitable +kindness; and then he would buy a commission in a +cavalry regiment newly ordered for Indian service.</p> + +<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_100'>100</span>“Why should I be always coming here?” he thought. +“They’re all very good to me, the young swells. But I feel +awkward amongst them still; and even if I could fall into their +ways, and make myself like them, which I can’t, where would +be the good? I don’t want to be a ‘swell;’ I should like to be +a soldier, with a regiment of glorious fellows to call me captain; +or a farmer, with half a county to ride over, and a thousand +sturdy labourers to take wages from me on a Saturday night; +or a merchant, like Mr. Hillary, with a small fleet of ships on +the high seas. That sort of thing would be life. But to dawdle +in a billiard-room; or lounge at Tattersall’s, and buy a horse +one doesn’t want, out of sheer idleness, and sell him at a loss +three weeks afterwards; or to go for a yachting excursion off +the Isle of Wight, with men to do all the work, and nothing to +do one’s self except lie on one’s back and smoke and drink pale +ale all day long: I can’t fancy such a life as that. So, why +should I come here any more? I can’t fall naturally into these +people’s habits. I think sometimes that I was happier out +yonder, brushing the captain’s clothes and talking to the convicts. +What a fellow that Surly Bill was! By Jove, that man +<em>had</em> seen life!”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Mr. Tredethlyn, lounging perpetually in the gardens by the +river, conscious of his incapability of breaking the spell that +bound him, thought, with some touch of envy, of the brilliant +career of his late acquaintance, Surly Bill the burglar. But now +the Cornishman had been all at once aroused from the pleasant +torpor which had crept upon him in this modern Castle of Indolence. +All that was most generous in the young man’s nature +arose in revolt against the thought that he had wronged Julia +Desmond. “It seems so hard that she should have set these +people talking about her by her kindness to an ignorant fellow +like me. It must do a girl harm to have her name bandied about +by an idle young fellow like Somerset. And she stands alone in +the world, too, with no father or brother to take her part. I +ought to have told that fellow to hold his tongue, and I will, too, +before I leave this house to-night. But <em>this</em> decides me, at any +rate. I’ve been here too much; I’ll buy a commission and go +out to India, and the lawyers must look after poor little Susy.”</p> + +</div> + +<div class='pbb'> + <hr class='pb c001'> +</div> +<div> + +<div> + <h2 class='c003'><a id='chapter-XIV'></a>CHAPTER XIV.<br> <br><span class='fss'>VERY PRIVATE THEATRICALS.</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>The river was gray and dim in the twilight by this time; for +the first half of October was gone, and the dusky shadows +gathered early on Mr. Hillary’s lawn. Francis Tredethlyn found +the gardens deserted when he left the terrace, and walked slowly +<span class='pageno' id='Page_101'>101</span>towards the house, where lights were gleaming in innumerable +windows. The young man had only ridden down to Twickenham +that morning, and had no special engagement to dine at +the Cedars.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I’ll go round to the stables at once,” he thought, “and I +can call in Moorgate Street to-morrow, and tell Mr. Hillary that +I think of going abroad. Why should I see <em>her</em> again? The +sight of her will only make me foolish, and keep me here in spite +of myself.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>The lady thus vaguely alluded to was not Miss Desmond; but +when Francis Tredethlyn entered Mr. Hillary’s house by the first +open window that presented itself on the upper terrace, he found +himself in a little study much affected by the ladies of the household, +and came suddenly upon a female figure sitting alone in +the dark.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Something like a guilty pang shot through him as he recognized +that stately figure, even in the shadowy obscurity of the +unlighted room. In the next moment there was a rustling of +silk, and Miss Desmond had risen and was facing him in the +twilight.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Yes, it <em>is</em> Mr. Tredethlyn,” she said, presently. “What +have you been doing with yourself all the afternoon? There has +been a grand discussion about some amateur theatricals, concerning +which Maude Hillary is absolutely bewitched, and we +want you to act.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I think you’ve got plenty of fellows who’ll act better than +I can, Miss Desmond; though I did try my hand at the business +once in Van Diemen’s Land; and I’d be glad to make +myself useful in any way that would please Miss Hillary, if it +was to dress myself as a footman and carry a tea-tray or a +scuttle of coals; but I think I shall be leaving England before +the theatricals come off; in point of fact, I think I shall be +leaving England directly.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Leaving England!”</p> + +<p class='c008'>The expression of those two words could scarcely have been +more tragical than it was; and yet for once in a way Miss +Desmond was <em>not</em> acting. All in a moment she saw the fair +edifice which she had schemed to build for herself crumbling +into ruin and chaos.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Leaving England!” she repeated,—“you think of leaving +England, Mr. Tredethlyn?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>She put her hands to her forehead with a little tragic gesture: +and Francis Tredethlyn wished that he had entered the +house by any other door or window than that which he had +chosen.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Julia’s dismay was entirely real; for the disappointment was +very bitter to this young lady; who had built up a fair future +<span class='pageno' id='Page_102'>102</span>for herself on the foundation of Francis Tredethlyn’s wealth. +The grim walls of Castle Desmond, the silver waters of the +Shannon, the green hill sides and lonely valleys, made themselves +into a picture that shut out the dusky room, and then +melted into gray blankness. She had meant to do such great +things with Francis Tredethlyn’s thirty thousand a year!</p> + +<p class='c008'>The young man stood looking at her in as much embarrassment +as if he had been guilty of some wilful deception. He +was so little of a coxcomb, that it was very difficult for him to +imagine that his sudden departure could give pain to the brilliant +Julia. He was so entirely simple and true-hearted, that +no suspicion of Miss Desmond’s mercenary views had any place +in his mind.</p> + +<p class='c008'>There was a very brief pause, and then Julia murmured, in +low, half-broken accents—</p> + +<p class='c008'>“You are really going away?—but why?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Oh, Miss Desmond, I scarcely like to tell you why; and yet +it’s not altogether on that account,” answered Francis, vaguely. +“There are other reasons. I am not in my right place amongst +such people as I meet here. I’m a rough, uneducated fellow, +and idleness doesn’t suit me. I want to be of some use in the +world. Why, I felt myself a better man out yonder, without +sixpence in my pocket, than I am to-day, in spite of Oliver +Tredethlyn’s money. So I mean to buy a commission and go +out to India, where there’s some fighting to be done.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“You are not telling me the truth, Mr. Tredethlyn. <em>This</em> is +not your real reason for running away from the Cedars, as if +the house were infected.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“My dear Miss Desmond, I—you have been so kind to me—you +have made me feel so much at home here, where, but for +you, I must have felt myself so miserably out of place.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Why should you be out of place amongst these people?” +cried Julia, drawing up her head with a proud gesture, “unless,” +she murmured, in a thoughtful undertone—“unless +because these people are so much beneath you.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Miss Desmond had entirely recovered herself by this time. +All at once, after sitting a long time at the table, playing her +cards with infinite tact and patience,—all at once she found +herself losing the game, and saw that only the boldest play +could help her. But Julia was equal to the situation. The +second of December had come upon her very suddenly; but she +did not despair of triumphing by a <span lang="fr"><span lang="fr"><i>coup d’état</i></span></span>.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Tell me the truth, Mr. Tredethlyn,” she said, looking +Francis full in the face, with her eyes and teeth gleaming in +the twilight; “why are you going to leave this house? Why +do you talk of hurrying away from England?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Because—because—I have done you a wrong in absorbing +<span class='pageno' id='Page_103'>103</span>so much of your society, Miss Desmond, and the people here +have begun to mix your name with mine. I cannot bear that +you, who are so superior to me, should be humiliated by such +an association; especially when there is no foundation for their +talk,” Francis Tredethlyn added, in considerable embarrassment.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Oh, I understand it all now,” answered Julia, with an unutterable +bitterness in her tone; “you have been warned against +me, Mr. Tredethlyn. I am only a fortune-huntress, and I +have been spreading my toils about your innocent footsteps, +and it is only by flight that you can save yourself. Oh, yes!” +she cried, with an ironical laugh, which seemed to express a +keener anguish than another woman’s wildest sob, “I know +how these people talk!”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Miss Desmond, on my honour⸺”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Mr. Tredethlyn, on <em>my</em> honour, I know the world better +than you do. If you had devoted yourself to any other woman +in this house, to any daughter of that mercantile aristocracy in +which Mr. Hillary rules supreme, no sneering comments would +have greeted your ear. But what am I—the daughter of the +Desmonds of Desmond—amongst these people? What am I +but Maude Hillary’s dependant and companion? I am poor, +and I endure poverty in its most cruel bitterness; for I am +poor amongst the vulgar rich. Who can give me credit for +sincerity? who dare trust in my friendship? I am a well-bred +pauper, a fortune-huntress, an adventuress, a creature whose +smiles are to be dreaded, whose society is to be avoided. O +Francis Tredethlyn,” cried Julia, with a sudden shiver of agony, +which would have done credit to a Rachel, “<em>I know so well</em> +what has been said to you. Go—go at once. You are wise to +accept the warning conveyed in these people’s insolent insinuations. +Go—there is a gulf between you and me, for you are +rich and I am poor. Beware of me even when I seem most +sincere. Remember that I am a pauper, and the descendant of +paupers—paupers who shed their blood and squandered their +fortunes in a losing cause; paupers who died for the love of +honour and loyalty, two words that would seem the emptiest +sounds to merchants and tradesmen. Oh, Mr. Tredethlyn, have +pity upon me, and go.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>And then Miss Desmond broke down all at once into a burst +of hysterical sobbing, and stretching out her hand towards the +back of a <span lang="fr"><i>prie-dieu</i></span> chair standing near her, tottered as if she +would have fallen. She did not fall, however; for before her +hand could reach the <span lang="fr"><i>prie-dieu</i></span>, Francis Tredethlyn’s strong +arm was round her.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Miss Desmond,” he cried, “Julia! why do you talk like +this? Do you think that any base thought about you ever +<span class='pageno' id='Page_104'>104</span>entered <em>my</em> brain? Fortune-huntress, adventuress—did I +ever wrong you in my inmost thoughts by such a name as +that?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“No,” answered Julia, softly. “<em>You</em> are too noble; and yet +you may have been influenced by others. Why should you +think better of me than others think? Why should not you +too despise me?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Her voice was broken by sobs, and she was still supported by +Mr. Tredethlyn’s arm. He felt that she was trembling violently. +He could just distinguish her handsome profile in the dusk, and +the tears glittering upon her dark lashes.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Despise you, Julia! you who are so superior to me! Do +you forget what I am? Have I not much greater reason to +fear your contempt? And you talk of poverty, as if that were +so deep a suffering, while I am so rich, and care so little for my +money. Share it with me, Julia. I’m only a poor waif and +stray as it is; but with such a woman as you for my wife I +might be of some good in the world. Heaven knows you are +welcome to my fortune, Miss Desmond. If you were a man, +and my comrade, I would say, Share it with me as my brother +and my friend. But you are a woman, and I can only say, Be +my wife.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Julia withdrew herself from the supporting arm.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Ah, Mr. Tredethlyn,” she said, in an icy kind of voice, +“this is the bitterest insult of all. The Desmonds do not marry +for money; they only marry where they are beloved, and can +love again.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“How can I expect that you can love me?” asked Francis. +“Do you think I can forget that I am an ignorant boor, suddenly +thrown amongst people whose habits of life, whose very +thoughts, are strange to me?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“And you would marry a woman without so much as asking +for her love?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I would ask for her friendship and her fidelity. I shouldn’t +care to exact an uneven bargain, Miss Desmond; and I doubt +if I could give much more myself,” the young man answered, +rather coldly. But at the sound of a stifled sob from Julia he +changed his tone all at once; a thousand generous impulses +were stirred in him by the aspect of her distress. He was +nothing more than a child in the hands of this brilliant young +Irishwoman.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Dear Miss Desmond,” he cried, “I seem destined to offend +and grieve you. If you will share my fortune, if you will accept +any best friendship and fidelity, my whole life shall prove to you +how much I admire and respect you. If you reject my offer, I +can only say⸺”</p> + +<p class='c008'>But Julia did not allow him to finish the sentence, which she +<span class='pageno' id='Page_105'>105</span>foresaw would be expressive of complete resignation to her adverse +decision.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Oh, Francis,” she exclaimed, “you offer me your <em>fortune</em>!” +There was something sublime in her contemptuous enunciation +of this last word. “You ask me to accept your friendship, +when I have been weak and mad enough to <span class='fss'>LOVE YOU</span>.” She +was not Rachel any longer; she was Madame Dorval, all melting +tenderness and womanly pathos. She covered her face with +her hands, and then, with something between a sob and a shudder, +rushed suddenly from the room, and hurried along the dusky +staircase and passages to her own apartment.</p> + +<p class='c008'>The candles were lighted on the dressing-table; but there +was no intrusive handmaiden to annoy Miss Desmond by her +watchful glances, her mute interrogation. Julia looked at her +reflection in the glass, and saw herself flushed and triumphant, +with traces of tears upon her cheeks.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“And my eyes are really wet,” she thought; “but then the +chance was such a good one, and so nearly lost. What a good, +simple-hearted fellow he is! and how happy any reasonable +woman might be with him—and thirty thousand a year! Ah, +Maude Hillary! it was very pretty and childish and nice of +you, coming to wake me out of my sleep on your last birthday, +to show me the set of diamonds and opals papa had bribed +your maid to slip under your pillow before you awoke; but +<em>I</em> will show you diamonds before long that shall make you +ashamed of that birthday trumpery.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Miss Desmond rolled her black hair into a great smooth +knot at the back of her head; and she put on a dress of that +fugitive golden yellow, in which there is an artful intermingling +of silvery sheen, and which milliners call maize—a bewilderingly +beautiful colour when seen in conjunction with a handsome +brunette. The loungers who dined at the Cedars that evening declared +that Julia Desmond had never looked so splendid. Francis +Tredethlyn sat by her at dinner, and was near her all the evening: +and at night, when he found himself alone in the pretty +chintz-curtain chamber that he had so often occupied of late, +the young man seated himself by one of the windows, and, +pushing open the sash, looked out at the quiet river rippling +softly under the stars.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“And she is to be my wife,” he thought; “she is very handsome, +and I ought to be proud to think that she can care for +such a fellow as I. And yet⸺” His head sank forward on his +folded arms, and the image of a beautiful creature smiled before +him in all the dazzling brightness of an opium-eater’s dream. +Francis Tredethlyn gave one long regretful sigh as he raised his +head, and looked moodily out at the distant woodland on the +other side of the river.</p> + +<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_106'>106</span>“What can it matter whom I marry?” he asked himself, +bitterly; “would <em>she</em> ever think of me, if I were to come +to this house every day for ten years at a stretch? Why, +her dogs are more to her and dearer to her twenty times than I +am. And Julia Desmond loves me, and thinks me better than +those fellows with the yellow whiskers, who are always talking +of new books and new music. They please <em>her</em>; but Julia +despises them. Am I such a wretch that I cannot be grateful +for a sensible woman’s affection? I <em>am</em> grateful to her. I am +proud to think that she will be my wife. But I wish I was +back in Van Diemen’s Land, blacking the captain’s boots, and +smoking shag tobacco with Surly Bill the burglar.”</p> + +<p class='c007'>After that dramatic little scene in the twilight study at the +Cedars, everything went on velvet. Julia was triumphant; +Maude was delighted and sympathetic. What could be more +charming or more proper than that Julia should marry a man +with thirty thousand a year for his fortune? The only hindrance +to universal happiness in a very delightful world was +the fact that so many people had to do <em>without</em> thirty thousand +a year, Miss Hillary thought, whenever she gave her mind to +the study of political economy.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“And you will be so rich, dear Julia,” Maude said, as she +kissed her friend; “and if Harcourt and I are very poor—as +we must be, unless papa gives his consent by-and-by—you’ll +take us for a drive in the Park sometimes, won’t you? And if +you give many parties in the season, I shan’t be able to come to +them; for you wouldn’t like to see me always in the same dress—like +those poor people at the Union—and I shall be obliged +to get a set of black-lace flounces, like Reder—you never saw +Reder, my last German governess but one—and put them on +pink silk one day, and blue the next, and so on; it’s very troublesome, +and the flounces don’t generally come straight; but +then it looks as if one had so many dresses. Of course you’ll +have boxes at <em>both</em> houses, Julia, and on the grand tier? and +you’ll buy a place in the country—and Oh, where do you mean +to live in town?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Miss Desmond answered all these eager queries very demurely. +Francis would make all arrangements for their future +life, she said; he <em>had</em> certainly promised her the two opera-boxes; +he had made inquiries about the one house that was to +be let in Park Lane; and he was anxious to discover her favourite +county before taking any steps towards the purchase of +an estate.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“But you know he is such a dear good fellow, and has such +a knack of guessing all my fancies, that really I never like to +suggest anything,” Miss Desmond concluded, modestly. But, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_107'>107</span>somehow or other, without making any very direct suggestions, +Julia had so contrived matters, that in a few weeks her affianced +husband had gratified many of the desires that had been smouldering +in her breast ever since the earliest dawn of girlhood.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Already the “family jools” of the Desmonds had been consigned +to the oblivion of one of Julia’s shabbiest trunks, and +diamonds now twinkled on Miss Desmond’s neck and arms, and +gleamed here and there in her black hair, when she came down +to dinner in her maize silk dress. Her toilette-table was all of +a glitter with the rings she drew off her slim fingers when she +disrobed at night, before the looking-glass which had so often +reflected a gloomy, discontented face, but which now only gave +back triumphant smiles.</p> + +<p class='c008'>She was an adventuress perhaps, and her triumph was an +ignoble one; but she was not altogether base. She was prepared +to be a good wife to the man whom she had brought to +her feet by force of feminine strategy. She did not love Francis +Tredethlyn; and indeed she seemed to be made of a sterner +stuff than that out of which the women who can love are +fashioned. She did not love her affianced husband; but she +meant to be as faithful and devoted as the most loving wife in +Christendom. If she intended to raise herself upon the platform +of her husband’s wealth, she meant that he should mount +with her. Already she had lifted him several stages on the +social ladder. From the very first her watchful care had saved +him from a hundred small solecisms, and in the more intimate +relationship of the last few weeks her refining influence had +been almost magical in its effects. The good old blood of the +Tredethlyns asserted itself, and Julia found her task an easy one.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I don’t want you to be like those Government clerks, and +magazine writers, and embryo Q.C.’s,” she said to him sometimes. +“I like you to be big and deep-voiced and—just a little +clumsy. The Knights-Templars, and Crusaders, and that sort +of people, must have been clumsy on account of their armour. +I always fancy I hear the clank of spurs when you come into a +room: and when you sit in Parliament you must be the soldier’s +friend, you know, and make great speeches about rations, and +court-martial verdicts, and discipline, and all that sort of thing; +and I shall come into the ladies’ gallery, and strain my eyes by +peering at you through that horrible grating. You will look so +handsome with your head thrown a little back, and your hand +in your waistcoat.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Now this kind of talk from a handsome woman, whom he +knows to be infinitely his intellectual superior, can scarcely be +displeasing to the most strong-minded of men; and, unluckily, +Francis Tredethlyn was not very strong-minded. He looked +down at his Julia with a sheepish smile, and acknowledged her +<span class='pageno' id='Page_108'>108</span>pretty flatteries in the lamest possible manner; but when he +came to the Cedars next morning, he brought with him the +biggest emerald-headed serpent that he had been able to find +among the jewellers of the West End, and coiled it about his +Julia’s wrist. He was grateful to her for all her tender smiles +and pleasant speeches—all the more grateful, perhaps, because +of that uncomfortable knowledge of the cold void in his own +heart, where love for his promised wife should have been. So +he brought her all manner of costly tribute in the way of rings +and bracelets, and necklaces and head-gear; and he bought her +a three-hundred-guinea hunter at Tattersall’s, so that she +should no longer ride Maude Hillary’s horses in the Twickenham +lanes. Sometimes, in spite of himself, even when Julia +was most agreeable, the thought came upon him that he would +only too gladly have given her the whole of his fortune if by +such a gift he might have freed himself from the promise that +bound him to her.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“But if I were free to-morrow, <em>she</em> would not care for me,” +he thought, “and what would be the use of my liberty?”</p> + +</div> + +<div class='pbb'> + <hr class='pb c001'> +</div> +<div> + +<div> + <h2 class='c003'><a id='chapter-XV'></a>CHAPTER XV.<br> <br><span class='fss'>A COMMERCIAL CRISIS.</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>The private theatricals at the Cedars were postponed till Christmas, +and in the middle of November Mr. Hillary removed his +household to a big bow-windowed habitation at the western end +of Brighton. Francis Tredethlyn followed, as in duty bound, +and spent a great portion of his life in hurrying to and fro +between London and Brighton by express trains. Never had a +better adorer done suit and service to a mistress. There were +no lovers’ quarrels, no temporary estrangements between these +two people. A serene and cloudless sky heralded the coming +splendour of their union, and Maude declared again and again +that she had never seen such a model pair of lovers.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Harcourt and I were always quarrelling, you know, Julia,” +she said; “but then we were both such horribly jealous creatures. +I didn’t like his turning over music for other girls; +though I suppose he was right, poor fellow, and a man must +either turn over music or shut himself from society altogether. +And he didn’t like my going down to dinner with people in crack +cavalry regiments; but I’m afraid we rather enjoyed ourselves +when we quarrelled, and I used to feel as if it would be the +easiest thing in the world to part from him for ever, and go +into a convent, or marry somebody I hated, or something of +that kind; and then directly we <em>had</em> parted, I used to get so +silly and miserable, and used to write him such penitent letters, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_109'>109</span>taking all the blame upon myself, and making an idiot of him. +But it’s so nice to see you and Mr. Tredethlyn, and I’m sure +he’ll be the dearest husband in the world, Julia, and you’ll be +able to twist him round your little finger.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>It was not with a feeling of unalloyed pleasure that Miss +Desmond accepted her friend’s congratulations. She was quite +ready to admit that Francis Tredethlyn was a model lover, and +promised to be the most submissive husband that ever bowed +himself before a clever wife’s dominion. His presents were +munificent, his attention was unfailing, his temper serenely +even; and yet there were times when Julia Desmond felt that +all was not quite as it should have been.</p> + +<p class='c008'>She had angled very successfully, and the fish she had landed +was a splendid prize, victoriously snatched from all other +anglers; but Oh, what a difference there is between that poor +deluded fish, entrapped out of the free waters by the cruel hook +of the angler, and the willing bird which flies, of its own loving +impulse, to the breast where it fain would shelter!</p> + +<p class='c008'>Julia Desmond knew that, in securing a husband, she had +not won for herself a lover; and the knowledge pained and +humiliated her. It was a small thing that she should not love +Francis; but it seemed very hard that Francis should not love +her. Her womanly tact would have stood in the place of affection, +and she would have been lavish in the expenditure of a +spurious coin, in the way of pretty words and tender looks, +which should have had all the glitter and some of the vibration +of the real mintage. But with Francis it was altogether different. +The young man had no power to simulate; and there was +a deadly coldness in his wooing that chilled the proud Irish +girl’s heart.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Are they worth the humiliation?” she thought sometimes, +when she contemplated her diamonds before the lighted glass +in her bedroom at Brighton. “They are very big and brilliant +and costly; but I’ve seen myself look handsomer with a scrap +of scarlet ribbon twisted in my hair, than I look to-night with +all these stars and crosses and serpents flashing and twinkling +about me. And then, when I go down stairs, I must go through +all the old stereotyped business; and when I thank him for +the flowers that he sent me this morning, he will look at me +with his cold eyes, and tell me he is pleased to have given me +pleasure. What is he but a clod—a mere clod, nothing but a +clod? I ought to remember that; and yet I am angry with +him because he does not love me. Why can I not be thankful +for my good fortune, and accept my future husband for what he +is,—a respectable, well-behaved ploughman, whom an accident +has endowed with thirty thousand a year?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Perhaps Miss Desmond did not particularly care to answer +<span class='pageno' id='Page_110'>110</span>that question which she put to herself in so impatient a spirit. +And yet it was a question that might have been answered, had +she cared to fathom the lower deeps of her own mind. But +then there <em>are</em> questions which are better left unanswered. +Why was she angry with Francis Tredethlyn for that passionless +serenity of manner which was so nearly akin to indifference? +Why? unless it was because in her own heart there +lurked the consciousness that the unpolished Cornishman <em>might</em> +have been a very different kind of lover; and that beneath his +cold exterior there were slumbering embers which might have +blazed into glory had one special torch been applied to them.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Yes, Julia knew this, and the knowledge was a perpetual +poison that embittered the wine of success. The pride of the +Desmonds had not been entirely trodden out beneath the iron +heel of poverty. This girl, who had not been too proud to set +herself to ensnare a rich husband, was yet proud enough to +feel the bitterness of her degradation.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“If he only loved me,” she thought, “I should feel that the +bargain was a fair one. But to know that, at best, he only +submits to the force of circumstances! He has been drifted +into the position of a lover, and he performs the duties exacted +of him; just like some non-dancing man who has been persuaded +to dance in order to fill the last place in a quadrille, and who +dawdles listlessly through the figures, and almost yawns in the +face of his partner. And yet I have seen him look at <em>her</em> until +the dull clay of which he is made seemed to change into a thing +of life and fire.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>And then Miss Desmond was fain to turn to her new jewel-case +for consolation, and to beguile her mind from unpleasant +thoughts by the consideration of all those grand things that +may be done with thirty thousand a year.</p> + +<p class='c008'>If the young ladies of the household thought it a pleasant +thing to spend the brief November afternoons on that delightful +esplanade beside the sea, Mr. Hillary did not find a residence in +Brighton so entirely convenient. A great deal of his time was +spent in journeyings to and fro by the best and quickest express +train in England: and there were days when even the facilities +of a Brighton railway would not enable the merchant to take +his dinner in the society of his beautiful daughter and her companion. +There were occasions on which the two girls sat for a +wearisome hour or so, trying vainly to amuse themselves by +some feminine occupation, or to beguile the time by some feminine +discourse, while the soup grew cold and the Brightonian +cook grew angry; and then at last were fain to sit down at +nine o’clock, and make a dismal pretence of dining without the +head of the household.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I sometimes think so much railway travelling must be bad +<span class='pageno' id='Page_111'>111</span>for papa,” Maude said. “I am afraid it must shake him a +little; though riding in the Brighton express is almost as good +as sitting in one’s own room. I fancy papa has not looked so +well lately. I have begged him to see Mr. Desborough, our +Twickenham doctor, or some London physician; but it’s no +use, for he won’t listen to me. I can’t tell you how uneasy I +am about him, Julia. He has had so many of his bad headaches +lately; and then he says the business in Moorgate Street +has been so heavy. Ah, Julia! what is the good of being rich, +if papa must work as he does?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Miss Desmond shrugged her shoulders.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Business men seem scarcely to exist out of their offices,” +she said, rather scornfully. She always took care to let Maude +know that she looked down upon the Twickenham splendour +and its commercial sources. “I dare say your papa will devote +himself to money-making as long as he lives.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I sometimes think we might have been happier if we +had been poorer,” Maude said, dreamily, by-and-by. “I can’t +help fancying how we might have lived in some quiet country +place, in a low-roofed, old-fashioned cottage, with a garden all +round it and a churchyard close by, and the smell of cows and +the cooing of pigeons; and then I need not have been separated +from⸺.” She did not finish the sentence; she was talking to +herself rather than to Julia. Her face was beautified by an inexpressible +softness and tenderness as she murmured that broken +sentence. Her thoughts wandered back to the time in which +she and Harcourt Lowther had sworn eternal constancy, standing +with their hands locked together in the dim summer +twilight, on the bank of the shadowy river. She thought of that +time, and all the freshness of feeling that had gone down with it +came back upon her suddenly, like a breath of air from a distant +ocean. How frivolous her life had been since then!—how +selfish and useless! What a round of dress and decoration, and +hurry and weariness! Harcourt Lowther’s last letter was in +her pocket as she sat musing despondently by the hired Brighton +hearth;—his last letter, a most melancholy epistle, full of +despairing lamentations about the bitterness of separation and +the hardships of Van Diemen’s Land. And over and above all +these feminine perplexities which tormented poor loving Maude, +there seemed real cause for anxiety in the state of Mr. Hillary’s +health. It was not that the merchant himself complained; he +did not complain, and, indeed, <a id='tn-inquiriesas'></a>appeared to resent any inquiries +as to his state, even when those inquiries came from such a privileged +person as his only child. But every morning at the breakfast-table, +sitting opposite to her father in the bright sunlight, +Maude could see a darker shade under Mr. Hillary’s eyes, a +more weary look about his haggard face. She defied his anger +<span class='pageno' id='Page_112'>112</span>very often, and pleaded earnestly with him, imploring him to +consult a physician; but his answer was always very much the +same.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I am subject to this sort of headache; my work in Moorgate +Street is peculiarly hard just now. Pray do not trouble +yourself, Maude; there is not the least occasion for any uneasiness +about my health.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>With such assurances as these Miss Hillary was compelled to +be satisfied. There had been an air of coldness, or almost displeasure, +in her father’s manner to her lately, and Maude found +to her surprise that he was by no means pleased with the matrimonial +engagement that had arisen between Julia Desmond +and Francis Tredethlyn.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Engaged to <em>her</em>!” the merchant exclaimed, when his +daughter carried him the news of Julia’s conquest,—“engaged +to Julia Desmond! Why, I fully believed that he came +to Twickenham on your account, Maude. I said nothing to you +about the matter, because girls have sometimes such absurd +notions, and I thought it better to let things take their course. +And so Julia has entrapped him, has she? I ought to have +been on my guard against Ryan O’Brien Desmond’s daughter.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“How can you talk like that, papa?” cried Miss Hillary. +“I’m sure Julia and Mr. Tredethlyn are really in love with each +other, and dear Julia is perfectly disinterested. And then, if +Mr. Tredethlyn had been ever so much in love with me—and +I’m sure he never cared the least bit about me—how could you +suppose that I could ever dream of marrying him; when I—when +he’s such a very common kind of person?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Harcourt Lowther’s name had been almost trembling on Miss +Hillary’s lips, but she had remembered her father’s aversion to +that name, and had modified the conclusion of her sentence in +deference to his prejudice.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“A very common kind of person!” repeated Lionel Hillary, +in a thoughtful tone; “yes, yes, my dear, I dare say he is, +I dare say he is. But I’ve seen women as beautiful as you +married to commoner men than Francis Tredethlyn.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>And then, after a brief silence, the merchant’s manner changed +all of a sudden; he took his daughter in his arms, and pressed +his lips upon her forehead with an almost passionate fondness.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“My darling! my darling!” he cried, “do you think it +wouldn’t please me to see you married to a man you could love?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Maude looked up into his face with a sweet smile upon her +own: her lips parted, and in the next moment Harcourt Lowther’s +name would have been spoken and his cause pleaded by +those innocent lips. But it seemed as if her father in a manner +anticipated what she would have said; for he put her from him +suddenly, and turned away with a faint shiver of pain.</p> + +<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_113'>113</span>“I am very sorry to hear of this engagement between Julia +and that young man,” he said, with his face averted from his +daughter, and his hands nervously shuffling among the papers +on the table before him. “I am very much vexed. There, go, +Maude; you don’t understand, you can’t understand. Go, my +dear; I’m busy.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>No more than this had ever been said between the father and +daughter upon the subject of Miss Desmond’s matrimonial +arrangements; but Maude had been able to discover that her +father’s vexation was not a matter of the moment, to be forgotten +and done with after the first surprise of the announcement. +Lionel Hillary was tolerably gracious to Mr. Tredethlyn, +but his manner towards Julia changed altogether. There were +times when he scarcely took the trouble to conceal his displeasure +from that young lady herself. He would sit watching her +moodily when Francis Tredethlyn was by her side, and would +sometimes, when the conversation gave him an opening, break +out into some cynical generality upon the husband-hunting +propensities of modern young ladies. Francis was too simple-minded +to comprehend the drift of these covert sneers; but +Julia understood her benefactor, and defied him with her bold +handsome eyes and her flashing teeth.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“He wanted thirty thousand a year for his daughter, I +suppose,” she thought, when she pondered on Mr. Hillary’s +discourtesy. “What grasping, avaricious creatures these rich +people are!”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Christmas was approaching, and that festival period was to +be spent at the Cedars, to which place Maude Hillary was tenderly +attached, despite her sentimental talk about poverty and +a simple home deep down in the heart of rustic England. The +young ladies’ portmanteaus had been packed ready for the departure +from Brighton, and Maude and Julia only waited for +Mr. Hillary to escort them on their homeward journey. He +had not been so much with them during the last week or so of +their sojourn: and as Francis Tredethlyn only came backwards +and forwards with Mr. Hillary, the girls had been left by themselves, +with no better occupation or amusement than the +reading of new books, the trying of new music, and a contemplation +of the blusterous gray waves beating eternally before +their windows: for the weather had been cold and stormy of +late, and the delicious esplanade had been deserted; only an +occasional masculine wanderer, out for a “constitutional,” +buffeted the winds and strode in dismal loneliness along the +pavement beneath Mr. Hillary’s windows.</p> + +<p class='c008'>It was only natural, under these circumstances, that the +young ladies should have grown weary of Brighton. They had +a close carriage at their disposal; but then driving through +<span class='pageno' id='Page_114'>114</span>perpetual tempest is not particularly agreeable even in a close +carriage. They went shopping in East Street two or three +times during the severe weather, and bought expensive materials +for impossible complications of Berlin-wool work and gold +beads; and, experimentalizing with the same on their return +home, discovered themselves at sea in a wide ocean of perplexity. +Thus it was that they grew very tired of Brighton, and wished +most earnestly for Mr. Hillary’s coming.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Oh, for the silvery ring of my own Broadwood!” exclaimed +Maude, as she rose from a struggle with a German rendering +of “Polly, put the kettle on,” in seven flats, and ten pages of +double arpeggios. “I wonder <em>who</em> makes the pianos for houses +that are let furnished? I’m sure they must all be made by the +same man; and I suppose it’s a theory of his own that makes +him always use damp wood, and put so much flannel into his +trebles.—I wish papa would come and take us home, Julia.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Miss Hillary expressed this wish at least twenty times in a +day; and Julia echoed it, as if out of pure sympathy. But Miss +Desmond was not a very sympathetic person, and she was really +anxious to get back to the neighbourhood of London and Francis +Tredethlyn. Nearly a fortnight had passed since the Cornishman +had been to Brighton, and Julia was terribly conscious that +the link which united him to her was very fragile, and might be +broken by any unlucky hazard—unless, indeed, his constancy +were sustained by a chivalrous sense of honour. She had as yet +had no opportunity of discovering his sentiments on this subject, +and she had a vague idea that a small farmer’s son, who had +taken the Queen’s shilling, would be unlikely to entertain the +same splendid notions of truth and loyalty that glowed in the +breasts of his superiors.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I know that he’s a very good fellow,” Julia thought; “and +I don’t suppose he would steal anything, or tell a deliberate +falsehood; but I dare say he would think it no sin to throw me +over at the last moment if⸺”</p> + +<p class='c008'>There was a point at which Miss Desmond’s reveries always +stopped short. She did not care to think about that which +Francis Tredethlyn might like to do, even if he were free to do +as he liked.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Mr. Hillary came home very late upon the evening of an especially +disagreeable day. He came down to Brighton by the mail +train, and arrived at the hired mansion just as the two girls were +gathering together the gold beads and Berlin wools, preparatory +to going to bed. But though the merchant had been so much +longer away than usual, he seemed in no particular hurry to embrace +his daughter; for instead of coming up to the drawing-room, +he walked straight to a dreary little study at the back of +the house, which had been set apart for his use.</p> + +<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_115'>115</span>Maude had heard the sonorous knock at the big street door, +and flew out of the drawing-room to greet the traveller.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“At last, dear papa!” she cried. “We have been as dull and +dreary as a pair of Marianas in a moated grange. Oh, you darling +papa! I am so glad you have come! Please take us home +to Twickenham: we’ve had <em>such</em> weather; we’re as helpless and +miserable as those poor working people who go about singing +so dreadfully flat when there’s a hard frost. ‘We are two lonely +single girls, and we’ve got no work to do!’” sang Miss Hillary, +with the established nasal drawl, as she skipped down the stairs.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Kiss me, you wet, cold, melancholy-looking papa,” she said, +planting herself between Lionel Hillary and the door of his +sanctum.</p> + +<p class='c008'>The merchant seemed in no very affectionate humour to-night. +He put his daughter aside without looking at her. His face was +fixed and stern in expression, and its gloomy rigidity was in no +way relaxed as he spoke to Maude.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Why are you up so late?” he said. “I thought you would +have gone to bed an hour ago. I don’t want to be worried to-night, +Maude. I’ve some papers down here that want looking +into, and I’ve brought other papers with me. I may have to +sit up half the night, perhaps; and, remember, I am not to be +disturbed.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“But you will be ill, papa, if you work so hard.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I shall not be ill, and I know what is best for myself. I +cannot and must not be annoyed to-night, Maude.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>He went into his room, where the servant had already made +an illumination that would have been enough for a chapel or a +factory, by means of five flaring gas-burners; but Maude followed +him, and was not to be put off even by the harsh words +that sounded so strangely in her ears.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Papa,” she remonstrated piteously, “I am sure that you are +ill, or that something has happened.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Mr. Hillary laid his hand upon his daughter’s shoulder, and +put her out of the room,—very gently, but with a certain determination +which was quite a new thing in his treatment of this +idolized and exacting Maude.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I tell you, once more, that I am going to be—very busy, +and must not—be disturbed.” He seemed tired, for the words +came slowly, as if the mere utterance of them were a painful +exertion. “Good night, my dear; go to bed, and sleep peacefully. +God bless you, and take you into his keeping!”</p> + +<p class='c008'>His manner changed all in a moment as he said this, and he +caught her suddenly to his breast and kissed her passionately, +as he had done on that other day when they had talked of +Francis Tredethlyn.</p> + +<p class='c008'>But in the next moment Maude found herself standing outside +<span class='pageno' id='Page_116'>116</span>the closed door of her father’s retreat, amazed and unhappy. +That sudden little gush of affection had been as perplexing to +her as Mr. Hillary’s unusual sternness of manner. It was all +alike strange; and vague fears agitated her as she went slowly +up-stairs to the big barren drawing-room, which looked very +little more home-like than a first-class waiting-room at a railway +station.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Julia had disappeared, and the flaring gas-lamps illumined +a great barren desert of Brussels carpet and emptiness. Dear +Julia always remembered that her good looks were her only +dower, and took care not to waste them by late watching in +the glare of many gas-burners. Maude sighed as she looked +round the empty room, and then seated herself at a table +adorned with a gaudy cover that looked like a small Turkey +carpet. She took up the impossible Berlin-wool work, and the +gold beads, and set herself to the task of counting tiny dots +and squares on a coloured paper pattern, with a view to discovering +where the Berlin-wool left off and the beads began. +But she was tired and unhappy, and the bewildering dots and +squares made her head ache; so she pushed away the work +presently, and roamed restlessly up and down the room: now +stopping by a table, and taking up a book, only to open it haphazard +and stare blankly at the pages; now lingering by the +piano, noiselessly fingering the notes, and tormented with a wild +desire to dash into some blusterous march that should startle +the slumbering household.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Her father had told her to go to bed. He was going to +work very late, and must on no account be disturbed. He had +worked late sometimes at Twickenham, but not often; and on +those occasions Maude had gone to sleep happily enough, only +a little disturbed by the thought of “poor papa” toiling over +those cruel business documents. But to-night it was altogether +different. At the risk of incurring her father’s anger, Miss +Hillary paced wearily up and down the desert of Brussels +carpet, waiting till she should hear the merchant’s step on the +stairs, and know that his night’s work was over.</p> + +<p class='c008'>She waited, oppressed by a vague uneasiness, and wondering +why she was uneasy. Why was it that to-night the thought of +her father’s toil mingled with all manner of strange fears and +misgivings? She was usually so frivolous, so apt to look +brightly put upon the sunnier aspects of the world around her; +but to-night her heart seemed like a leaden weight in her +breast. What was it? why was it? The cheap French clock +upon the chimney-piece struck some abnormal number between +twelve and twenty, and a distant church clock struck two; but +still Miss Hillary waited in vain for that expected step upon +the stair. Her father had said that he would be very late, but +<span class='pageno' id='Page_117'>117</span>she had hoped that at the worst his work would be finished in +a couple of hours. The time seemed so intolerably long to +Maude Hillary, roaming in a purposeless manner about that +big room, or standing in the bay-window to listen to the hoarse +roaring of the waves, or sitting down to read for five minutes +together, but never once knowing what she was reading.</p> + +<p class='c008'>There had been so few troubles in her life, and looking back +at the smooth sunlit ways by which she had wandered from +childhood to womanhood, she was seized all at once with a fear +that there must be some great grief in store for her. It was +quite impossible that she could have altogether withheld herself +from some contemplation of that startling question as to +her right to be happy in a world where so many people were +miserable; but the question had never intruded itself upon her +so awfully as to-night.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I have never had sickness, or death, or sorrow near me,” she +thought. “My mother died before I was conscious of her existence—as +I think—and yet it seems strange that there can be +any time when a child is unconscious of a mother’s presence, or +heedless of her loss. The worst trouble that I can remember is +my parting from Harcourt; and I have always hoped that all +would come right at last. But to-night—to-night I feel as if +there had been something sinful in my happiness. The sermons +I have heard at church never came home to me. I never felt +that I was a miserable, sinful creature, groping my way upon a +thorny path. I’m afraid I have been very wicked; selfish and +idle, vain and frivolous.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Looking back at her life, Miss Hillary saw an existence of +Twickenham pleasure, water-parties, and pic-nics, Star-and-Garter +dinners, perpetual Parisian bonnets, and turquoise +bracelets, pet dogs, new novels, opera-boxes, and concert-tickets. +Perhaps she had never before watched and waited alone at these +still hours of the dead winter-night, and these unusual thoughts +may have been only the natural companions of her loneliness.</p> + +<p class='c008'>She looked at her watch a dozen times in an hour, and at +last, when it was nearly three o’clock, her patience was exhausted +all at once, and she resolved on going down to her father’s +room.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“He will be very angry with me for sitting up so late,” she +thought, “but I <em>cannot</em> go to bed until I have seen him. It +will be better to see him ever so cross with me than not to see +him at all.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Having once arrived at this determination, Maude Hillary ran +down stairs and tapped lightly at her father’s door. There was +no answer, and she repeated that timid tapping. Again there +was no answer, and she tried the handle of the door, intending to +steal softly in and surprise the merchant at his work. But the +<span class='pageno' id='Page_118'>118</span>door was locked, and her breath grew thick with the sudden +oppression caused by some vague terror. She lost all command +over herself, and knocked loudly, calling in a frightened voice, +“Papa! papa!”</p> + +<p class='c008'>It was not so strange that she should be frightened. How +often she had heard of hard-working City magnates suddenly +stricken down in the prime of life by some fell disease, unsuspected +until that last fatal moment!</p> + +<p class='c008'>A heavy footstep inside the little room relieved her of these +vaguely terrible fears. The door was opened, and Mr. Hillary +stood before her, very pale, very angry. “Maude! how absurd +this is! What have you been doing? Why have you been +sitting up?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Because somehow I <em>couldn’t</em> go to bed while you were working +down here, papa darling. I couldn’t; I didn’t want to worry +you or disobey you; but I don’t know what’s the matter with +me to-night. All manner of ridiculous things came into my head, +and I felt that I <em>must</em> see you before I went to sleep. Let me +come in, papa.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>She pleaded so prettily, looking up in her father’s face with +such tender devotion beaming in her own, that Lionel Hillary +must have been something harder and sterner than the stoniest +of mercantile men if he had been deaf to her pleading.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Come in if you like, Maude,” he said, with a weary sigh; +“I am sorry that you disturbed me. I had very nearly finished +my work.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>The littered mass of papers that had been scattered on Mr. +Hillary’s desk when Maude had left him were gone now, and +only a few neat little packets remained in their stead. But, +placed conspicuously upon the desk, Maude perceived a big envelope +with a great red seal, and lying near it a smaller envelope +also sealed.</p> + +<p class='c008'>The merchant had removed his neckcloth. He seemed to have +been working hard, for big drops of moisture stood upon his +forehead. A great basket near his chair was filled to overflowing +with torn scraps of paper, and the shower of waste had fallen +far and wide, and lay like snow about the chair in which Mr. Hillary +had been sitting.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Now, Maude,” he asked sternly, as his daughter followed +him into the room, “what is it that you want with me?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Why, to see you leave your work and go to bed, papa. You +don’t know how late it is.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>The merchant smiled a grim smile, and pointed to his watch, +which lay open on the desk.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I’ve been working against time, and I’ve kept watch upon +every quarter of an hour,” he said.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“But you have finished now, papa.”</p> + +<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_119'>119</span>“Not quite. I have very nearly finished—but not quite.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Miss Hillary shook her head with a pretty petulant gesture. +She was not in the least afraid of her father’s anger now. She +had been so tortured by dim and shadowy apprehensions, that +her spirits rebounded suddenly now that she was by her father’s +side, and she was bold enough to defy him.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I shan’t leave you any more to-night, papa. If you had all +the business of the Stock Exchange to transact, I wouldn’t let +you sit up any longer, ruining your health by brooding over +those tiresome papers. Besides, your desk is quite clear; you +seem to have done everything.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“No, I have not done everything.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Mr. Hillary had resumed his seat, and was staring absently +at the desk before him, where all things looked so neat and +orderly that Maude seemed justified in thinking that her father’s +work was done. There was a row of drawers on each side of +the desk. One of them was open, and a bunch of keys hung +from the lock. A copy of the <cite>Times</cite> newspaper lay across the +top of this open drawer; but as Miss Hillary hung about her +father, some portion of the silken flounces or furbelows of her +dress brushed against the paper, and it fell rustling to the +ground. Lionel Hillary turned suddenly with a look of alarm +directed towards the open drawer, and Maude, following his +glance, saw something lying among the neat packets of letters +and papers,—something which had no business to be there; +something which seemed to realize a greater terror than any +that her fancy had shaped, however dimly, during those hours +of weary waiting in the room above.</p> + +<p class='c008'>The object which seemed so terrible to Maude Hillary was a +pistol—a small pistol, of very modern fashion, fresh and bright +from the hands of the gunmaker. Mr. Hillary was not a man +who affected the gunsmith’s art, and Maude had never seen +such a weapon in her father’s possession until to-night;—until +<em>this</em> night, when vague fears respecting him had been so long +busy in her brain, only wanting a form into which to shape +themselves.</p> + +<p class='c008'>It seemed as if her frivolous girlhood left her all at once. It +seemed as if that great terror, coming upon her with such +ghastly suddenness, transformed her into a woman—a woman +possessed of woman’s highest attributes, fortitude, and self-abnegation. +She uttered no cry of alarm, no exclamation of +surprise; but she suddenly closed and locked the drawer in +which the pistol lay, and dropped the bunch of keys into her +pocket. Then kneeling down beside her father’s chair, she put +her arms tenderly about him, and laid her head upon his breast. +Mr. Hillary had grown very passive all at once, and sat idly +staring at the table before him.</p> + +<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_120'>120</span>“Papa,” Maude said presently, in a low, pleading voice, +“what is it? tell me, confide in me. In whom should you trust, +if not in me? What is it, papa? what does it mean?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“It means—ruin!” the merchant answered, huskily. He +did not turn towards his daughter, but still sat staring blankly +straight before him. “It means failure and ruin, Maude; ruin +in its worst shape, its most hideous shape.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“You mean that we shall be poor, very poor—that we shall +have to leave Twickenham—that you will be a clerk perhaps in +some office, and I a daily governess. I remember when the +Gordons failed, and poor Constance Gordon and her brothers +had to begin the world afresh, without money, and with very +little help from their old friends. Do you think I could not +bear as much as that, and be happy still, if you were with +me? Ah, papa, papa, do I seem to you such a helpless, useless +creature, that you shrink from trusting me at such a time +as this?” Hysterical sobs rose in her throat, but she stifled +them, and went on talking to him in the same quiet tender +voice, and caressing him as she talked. He submitted passively +enough to her caresses, but he seemed scarcely conscious of +them.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Trust me, papa; tell me everything. Such troubles as these +seem so much less dreadful when once they have been freely +spoken of. I remember how Mr. Gordon kept everything hidden +from his family as long as he could; and Constance told me +that it seemed as if a great cloud was hanging over the house, +and there was something in the atmosphere that stifled them all. +But when the crash came at last, they bore it bravely; and see +how well they have got on ever since, in a moderate way. Ah, +papa, you have brought me up like a spoiled child, or a princess +in a fairy tale; and now that trouble has come to us, you think +I can’t bear it. But I <em>can</em>, papa; if you will only be brave, +your foolish, extravagant daughter will learn to be wise and +patient. I was getting very tired of Twickenham, papa; and +shall be as happy as the day is long in a nice little cottage in +some cheap suburb, where I can have pupils.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Lionel Hillary ought no doubt to have been comforted by his +daughter’s tenderness; but unhappily there are some wounds so +cruelly inflamed, that the gentlest application the surgeon can +devise is apt to chafe and irritate them. The girl’s talk jarred +upon the merchant’s mind, and it was with a shiver of pain that +he turned to her as she left off speaking.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Child, child!” he exclaimed, fretfully, “you don’t know +what you’re talking of. Do you think it is such an easy thing +to pass from one of the first positions in the City to a clerkship +and a cottage in the suburbs? Do you think there is nothing +<em>between</em> such opposite conditions? Do you suppose I have +<span class='pageno' id='Page_121'>121</span>only to shut up my books, and wish my creditors good morning, +before I walk out of my office! You talk and think like a child, +Maude. It is all very well for an old twaddler like John Gordon, +who suspends payment upon the first failure that affects +his stability, and who winds up his affairs with a dividend of +fifteen shillings in the pound, and the compliments and sympathy +of all Basinghall Street. No one will sympathize with +<em>my</em> fall, though more than I can count will suffer with me. I +am not a man to drop under the first blow, Maude; for nearly +three years I have been working a rotten ship, with the knowledge +that nothing short of a miracle could save me from wreck. +The wreck has come. The world will call me a dishonest man, +because I waited for that miracle. I waited as the gambler +waits at the green table, hoping that the last risk would bring +me salvation. With me ruin means disgrace. I tell you, Maude, +before the month is out, there will be a panic in the City, and +men will cry out that Lionel Hillary is a rogue and a swindler. +There’s not a man who ever dined at Twickenham that won’t +use his knowledge of my home as a weapon against me. There’s +not a bottle of wine I ever gave a friend whose price and quality +will not be made a reproach against me. Oh! I know how +people talk about these things. Go away, child! Your presence +only goads and irritates me. It reminds me that I might +have done better than I have done; I might have been wiser, +I might have saved something—my good name at least. I have +loved you so dearly, Maude,—Heaven only knows how dearly, +for I am no man of big words or sentimental phrases. And +now I leave you utterly destitute, the pauper child of a disgraced +father.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“But you shall not leave me,” cried Maude, with a sudden +energy that startled Lionel Hillary. “Papa, why do you insist +upon treating me as a child? Why do you judge me by what I +have been, rather than by what I can be? Why won’t you trust +me? why won’t you talk to me as if I were a son, and had a +right to share your secrets? You have told me the worst, and +you see I can bear to know it. I can endure even disgrace; but +I cannot bear to lose you. Trust me, papa. I will be patient +under any calamity except⸺” She was seized with a sudden +shivering, and clung to him with a convulsive force in the small +hands that entwined themselves about his arm. “You know +what I mean, papa,” she said. “Believe that I can bear anything +if you will be true and brave and patient. And even yet +the miracle may come. Something may happen at the very +last, surely it may, to save your good name.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Mr. Hillary pressed his daughter’s hand in acknowledgment +of so much tenderness and devotion; but he shook his head +moodily as he answered her, “Nothing <em>can</em> happen to save me, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_122'>122</span>unless twenty thousand pounds drop from the skies between this +and the 10th of January.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Twenty thousand pounds! Maude’s thoughts flew to her +jewel-case, in obedience to the most universal of feminine instincts. +Twenty thousand pounds! Alas for that birthday gift +of opals and diamonds, the turquoise rings and bracelets, the +emerald cross, the delicate pink coral, and all the fragile fantastic +toys of gold and enamel, bought in the dearest market of +elegant West-end dealers, who give three years’ credit. Maude, +in all her ignorance, was wise enough to know that these things +would not realize one of the twenty thousands required by her +father.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“But there is Twickenham, papa,” she said; “the Cedars +must be worth ever so many thousands.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“And is mortgaged to the full extent of its value,” answered +Mr. Hillary. “Find me twenty thousand pounds, if you can, +Maude; but don’t worry me with frivolous suggestions. I tell +you that it is quite impossible for a woman to understand my +position. God help me! I scarcely understand it myself. I +only know that everything round me is so much rottenness, +and that the crash <em>must</em> come next month.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“But you will not think—of that—again!” urged Maude, +pointing to the drawer.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“No; I’ll wait to the tenth.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“For <em>my</em> sake; Oh, papa, for my sake!”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“No, child; not for your sake, but from a selfish, cowardly +clinging to life,” cried Lionel Hillary, with sudden passion. “It +would be better for you, ten times better, if I were dead. The +thought of that was in my mind as I came down here to-night, +until the noise of the engine almost seemed to thump out the +words, ‘Better for her, better for her.’ People would have mercy +upon you if I were dead, Maude; even those who suffered by +me would be less bitter in their reproaches if I were dead. A +man can only break his heart once; and when the man is dead, +there is no mark for the arrows of justifiable reproach, or the +foul garden-stuff and rotten eggs of malicious calumny.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Papa, the help may come; the twenty thousand pounds +may be found.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“No, child; there was only one hope of that, and the hope is +gone.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>For the first time that night Mr. Hillary looked at his +daughter; she saw the look, an anxious scrutiny that sent a +chill through her heart. She did not ask him what that one +hope had been.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Papa, trust in me, only trust in me!” she cried; “you do +not know of what I am capable for your sake—for your sake. +You don’t know what I have suffered to-night, and how changed +<span class='pageno' id='Page_123'>123</span>I am by that suffering. Hope for a miracle even, papa: keep +things as smooth as you can, and between this and the tenth the +twenty thousand pounds may be found. Only tell me one thing. +You don’t want anyone to <em>give</em> you the money. If it were lent +to you, you could repay it by-and-by?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Yes; with sufficient time I could repay it.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Then hope for the miracle, papa. Ah! you think me such +a child that you are almost angry with me for telling you to +hope; but the lion laughed at the mouse, I dare say.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Five minutes after this, Miss Hillary led her father to his +room, and wished him good night, cheerfully enough, upon the +threshold. But under that pretence of cheerfulness, cruel fears +and perplexities were torturing her innocent heart. Ruin, dishonour, +disgrace; the misery of many homes besides that one +household on the bank of the river,—all these terrors had come +very suddenly upon the girl who only that morning had been +impatient of the December weather and the dull gray sky.</p> + +<p class='c008'>She went to her room; but only to sit with the door open, +listening for any sound in her father’s apartment, which was +next her own. She sat for nearly two hours shivering with +cold, and then crept softly to her father’s room and opened +the door. The merchant was sleeping, peacefully enough to all +appearance, for his breathing was tranquil and regular; so +Maude went back to her room. It seemed the bitterest mockery +to go to bed; but then Miss Hillary’s maid would have been +scandalized had she come at eight o’clock and found her mistress +still watching. Alas, poor Maude; for the first time in her life +she had to submit to that most cruel social penance, entitled +“keeping up appearances.” She went to bed; and though she +seemed to hear every hour, and half-hour, and quarter of an hour +chimed by the church clocks, she must have slept at some time +or other in that brief remainder of the night, or else how should +she have been tormented by those hideous dreams, in which she +was always wading through black morasses and turgid waters, +carrying in her arms a great bag of gold, which she vainly +strove to convey to her father?</p> + +</div> + +<div class='pbb'> + <hr class='pb c001'> +</div> +<div> + +<div> + <h2 class='c003'><a id='chapter-XVI'></a>CHAPTER XVI.<br> <br><span class='fss'>A DRAMA THAT WAS ACTED BEHIND THE SCENES.</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>Mr. Hillary escorted his daughter and Julia Desmond back +to Twickenham upon the day following that night-scene of +anguish and terror. They left Brighton rather late in the day, +and arrived at the Cedars when the early winter evening had +closed in upon the leafless avenues and groves about the old +house. Lights were burning cheerily in the long range of lower +<span class='pageno' id='Page_124'>124</span>windows, and in the vestibule and inner hall; and rare groups of +stainless marble gleamed white against a background of bright +hothouse flowers. Deferential servants came hurrying out as +the carriage drove up; and Miss Hillary, seeing her home in +all its accustomed brightness and comfort, felt a painful sense of +bewilderment. It was so difficult to realize the force of that +calamity which had been so lately revealed to her: it was so +difficult to believe that all this splendour was so much rottenness, +from which there was only one step to poverty and disgrace.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Mr. Hillary had visited his daughter’s room very early upon +the morning after the terrible confidence between them, and had +impressed upon her the necessity of suppressing every evidence +of the knowledge that had come to her.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I have been compelled to trust you, Maude,” he said; “and +you must prove yourself worthy of my confidence. Heaven +only knows how difficult it has been for me to keep the secrets +of my business during three years of reverses and misfortunes +such as rarely fall to the lot of a speculator. My only chance +of floating over this crisis lies in the meeting with some friend +who will lend me the money I want, without looking too closely +into the nature of the security I have to offer. But let the +state of my affairs once get wind, and all hope of retrieval +would be lost. Remember this, Maude: and, if you love me, +show a bright face to the world; and above all, beware of Julia +Desmond. That young lady is a dangerous person, my dear; +and the day may come when we shall have reason to regret +having given a shelter to old Desmond’s destitute child.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“But Julia is a dear good girl, papa; she would be very sorry +for us, I am sure,” Maude pleaded, innocently.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Julia has contrived to feather her own nest so remarkably +well, that she would be very indifferent to any calamity that +could come to her friends,” answered the practical man of the +world, who had been by no means pleased with Miss Desmond +since that young lady’s conquest of Francis Tredethlyn.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Maude kissed her father,—ah, how passionately! She clung +to him, as she remembered that long feverish dream of the previous +night, and the glittering something lying in the drawer; +she kissed him, and promised that his secrets should be guarded +more carefully than her own life.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“And the miracle <em>may</em> be accomplished between this and the +tenth of January, papa,” she said.</p> + +<p class='c008'>And then, as Lionel Hillary was about to leave his daughter’s +room, she placed herself suddenly between him and the door, +and turned the key in the lock. He looked at her, surprised and +perplexed.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Maude!”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Dearest father, you have trusted me, and you have exacted +<span class='pageno' id='Page_125'>125</span>a promise from me,” said Miss Hillary, with a quiet calmness +that was more impressive than any vehemence of manner; “and +now I want you to give me a promise, a very solemn promise, +my own dear father.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>She put her hand upon his shoulder and kissed him once +more, clinging to him fondly, looking tenderly upward to his +pale careworn face. Then she took a bunch of keys from her +pocket and held them out before him.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“You remember those keys, papa; I am going to return +them to you; but I want you to kneel down with me here, now, +when all that feverish excitement of last night has passed away; +I want you to promise me, as you hope for mercy and happiness +in a better world when this life is all gone by and done with,—I +want you to promise me that you will never again under any +circumstances, in any hour of trial or temptation, think of that +dreadful alternative of which you thought last night. Oh, papa! +remember it is such a terrible sin even to think of it; for we +can never do so until we have ceased to trust in God.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>The simple words went straight to Lionel Hillary’s heart—that +world-weary heart, in which there was but this one tender +quality of paternal love still left. No subtle arguments of +theologian or philosopher could have so deeply influenced him +as his daughter’s gentle pleading. He knelt by her side, close +to a little table, on which an open Testament was lying, and +pressing his lips upon the sacred page swore that he would +never again contemplate the sin which he had so nearly committed +only a few hours before.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“It is a coward’s remedy at the best,” he said presently; +and then he took his daughter in his arms and looked down at +her tearful face with a mist before his own eyes, which made +that bright young beauty seem blotted and dim. “My Maude, +my darling, surely Heaven must have created you to be my +guardian angel. I have not been a good man; I have been +too much of a speculator for the last few years,—a reckless +speculator, perhaps; but when the demon of commercial hazard +had his grip strongest upon me, your image was always in my +mind. I wanted to leave you rich, secure from all the troubles +of this world. I was a poor man in my young days, Maude; +and perhaps the bitterness of that early time may have taught +me to set too high a value upon wealth. Fortune came to me +afterwards, almost as wonderfully as it comes to a prince in a +fairy tale; and some recklessness of spirit may have been +engendered in me by my own successes and by the times in +which I have lived.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“But, dear papa, you need not fear poverty for my sake,” +said Maude; “only trust in me, and when the time comes you +shall find me ready to face it. My life has been very pleasant—too +<span class='pageno' id='Page_126'>126</span>pleasant, I dare say,—I have always felt that it was so +when the thought has come to me of all the people who suffer +in this world. But you know how the princess in the fairy tale, +who has never known a sorrow, goes out all at once into the +great forest, more helpless and lonely than the poorest woodman’s +daughter, and yet no harm ever comes to the princess, +papa. If it will only please Heaven to spare your good name, +poverty will have no sting for me; and if disgrace <em>should</em> come, +I will bear it for your sake,—I will bear it without a murmur +for your sake, papa.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>She broke down just a little as she said this; she could not +speak quite calmly of that most terrible loss of all—the loss of +her father’s commercial honour. She remembered, very dimly, +long prosy discussions that she had heard at Mr. Hillary’s +dinner-table, about men who had failed, and who had failed +through some dishonesty or recklessness of their own, and whose +downfall had involved the hard-won fortunes of others, making +a vast circle of ruin, spreading as the watery circle spreads when +you drop a pebble into a tideless lake.</p> + +<p class='c008'>From this time it almost seemed as if a new life began for +Maude Hillary. No more careless idling over new music, no +more eager commencements of expensive fancy-work that was +never to be finished! After Miss Hillary’s return to the Cedars, +anyone taking the trouble to watch her closely might have perceived +a wonderful alteration in her conduct—a change that was +almost a transformation in her very nature. When she opened +her piano now, it was for no idle trifling with fashionable difficulties, +no coquetting with shakes, and skipping of arpeggios. +She practised steadily, and for hours together. Might not the +time be very near at hand in which she would be called upon to +gird on her armour, and join the ranks of the bread-winners? +She thought of herself in a dingy London street, somewhere in +the dreary region between Holborn and the New Road—the +region which was once a fair expanse of pleasant meadow-land. +She thought of herself toiling as so many women toiled, leading +the same dull life from day to day; and her courage did not fail +her even before that dismal picture. It was not likely that this +change in Maude Hillary could escape the notice of so observant +a young lady as Miss Desmond. Julia saw and wondered, but she +was far from guessing the real cause of Maude’s unusual gravity.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I suppose she is making herself unhappy about Harcourt +Lowther,” thought Miss Desmond. “These fortunate people +always contrive to find <em>one</em> crumpled leaf in their beds of roses. +She is making herself miserable about that handsome, worthless +soldier, and she thinks herself hardly used because she cannot +play at love in a cottage, with a rich mercantile father to pay +the expenses of the idyllic <span lang="fr"><i>ménage</i></span>.”</p> + +<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_127'>127</span>This was how Julia Desmond accounted for Maude’s long +intervals of absent brooding, and that melancholy shadow which +settled on her face whenever she fancied herself unnoticed, and +for a while relaxed the heroic effort with which she tried to keep +her promise, and guard her father’s secret. It was a very hard +struggle. All the young idlers, the government clerks, the briefless +but literary barristers, the rising artists who had narrowly +escaped making palpable hits at the Royal Academy, or at a +temple of art which they irreverently alluded to as the “British +Inst,” all the accustomed Twickenham loungers flocked down to +the Cedars to keep their Christmas holidays in the house of a +gentleman whom they regarded as a sort of commercial Midas—a +Moorgate Street Fortunatus, from whose inexhaustible coffers +flowed the golden waters of perpetual prosperity: and Maude +received all the old incense, and was fain to smile something like +the old smiles upon her worshippers; while her heart ached with +an unceasing pain, and a hidden dread that was like a palpable +burden weighed for ever on her breast.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Oh, if they knew—if they only knew!” she thought. “They +court me because they think I am rich, perhaps; but if they +only knew what an imposture all this splendour is—these lights +and flowers, and grapes and pines, and Sèvres china and Venetian +glass, and all this long parade of dinner! if they knew that +poverty and disgrace may come to us before the new year has +well begun!” Sometimes, in her utter weariness of spirit, sometimes +when the social comedy seemed almost too hard to act, +Miss Hillary felt suddenly tempted to turn round upon her +admirers, and cry to them,—</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Why do you torment me with your hackneyed compliments? +I am <em>not</em> the daughter of a millionaire; my father is only an +imprudent speculator, who is hovering on the verge of a black +abyss of bankruptcy and ruin. Go and offer your worship in +some solvent temple, and leave me alone with my father and his +sorrows.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>This, or something akin to this, Miss Hillary was at times +sorely tempted to utter. But she kept her promise. She had +promised that no word or action of hers should betray the rottenness +of her father’s position, and she kept a close watch upon +herself. Her adorers—who were by no means so mercenary as +she thought them—perceived that something was amiss with +their goddess; but were far from associating anything so vulgar +as the state of the money-market with the lessened lustre of her +smiles.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“She’s engaged to some fellow in the army, and her father +won’t let her marry him, and the fellow writes her worrying +letters; Miss Desmond told me as much,” the loungers said one +to another, when confiding in each other about Miss Hillary.</p> + +<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_128'>128</span>The brilliant Julia had taken care to let Maude’s admirers +know that her heart had long been bestowed upon a remote +object; but she did not go so far as to reveal the name of Miss +Hillary’s chosen lover; and Francis Tredethlyn had no suspicion +that Maude Hillary and the beautiful heiress of whom his master +had so often spoken were one and the same person. He knew +nothing of this; he only knew that Maude seemed as remote +from his sphere as the distant stars that shone coldly upon him +out of a steel-blue winter sky when he looked from his window +at the Cedars. He spent his Christmas at the Cedars; for Mr. +Hillary had been specially cordial and hospitable to him of late, +and had resumed all his old graciousness of manner to Julia.</p> + +<p class='c008'>And the private theatricals, the elegant drawing-room exhibition +of amateur histrionics, which Maude had planned so merrily +in the autumn, were to take place on the first night of the new +year—now, when the poor girl’s heart was sinking under the +dull pain of that perpetual burden, that dreary terror of the disgrace +which might be so near.</p> + +<p class='c008'>She had told her father that a miracle might be wrought +before the 10th of January. Of what had she thought or +dreamed when she held out that hope? What daring fancy +had been engendered out of the excitement of the moment? +There are times when a woman feels capable of becoming a social +Joan of Arc, a bloodless Charlotte Corday; but then the enthusiasm, +the exaltation of the moment is so apt to pass <em>with</em> the +moment. There had been a vague but desperate intention lurking +in Maude Hillary’s mind when she had encouraged her +father by those hopeful speeches; but the days were creeping +past, the new year was close at hand, and nothing had been +done. Nothing had been done; and now Miss Hillary was tormented +all day long about these wonderful private theatricals, +which were to surpass every drawing-room performance since +the days when the unhappy daughter of the Caesars played a +<span lang="fr"><i>soubrette</i></span> for the delight of that taciturn king and grandfather-in-law +who did not like to laugh.</p> + +<p class='c008'>All arrangements for the grand entertainment had been made +before Mr. Hillary’s household removed to Brighton. The +play had been selected, the characters allotted to the individuals +who were supposed, or who supposed themselves, to be +most fitted to play them; but not without as much shuffling +and changing as the kings and queens undergo in a game of +cards. The drama finally chosen was the “Lady of Lyons,” +selected, no doubt, on that grand principle in accordance with +which all amateurs go to work, <span lang="la"><i>i. e.</i></span> because it is a play which +specially requires accomplished actors in every one of its characters. +Of course Maude was to be the <i>Pauline</i>. Was she +not sole daughter and heiress of the master of the house, at +<span class='pageno' id='Page_129'>129</span>whose expense all the business was to take place? If she had +been red-haired, or hump-backed, or lame, the amateurs could +scarcely have done otherwise than choose her as the representative +of the lovely <i>Mademoiselle Deschappelles</i>. But as she was +one of the fairest daughters ever spoiled by a wealthy merchant, +she was really created for the part, as it seemed; and she had +only to order her dresses and let down her sunny hair in the +classic disorder of the period, and she would be the loveliest +<i>Pauline</i> that ever won the simple heart of an aspiring young +gardener. But how about <i>Claude</i>? At first every one of the +amateurs had desired to play <i>Claude</i>, and nothing but <i>Claude</i>. +To wear that impossible velvet coat, with its lavish embroidery +of gold and spangles; to snub <i>Beauseant</i>, and to patronize +<i>Damas</i>; to flourish diamond snuff-boxes and rings, and filmy +ruffles of point d’Alençon, which are <em>so</em> becoming to the unhappy +amateur, whose hands are apt to assume the rich purple hues +of raw beef under the influence of extreme terror; to hold Miss +Hillary in their arms, and cry, “Oh, rapture!” in a ponderous +bass voice apparently situated somewhere in those martial jackboots, +without which <i>Claude</i> would be less than <i>Claude</i>,—to do +all this seemed to the young men at the Cedars a glory and +delight which would be cheaply won by the cutting of one +another’s throats in a <span lang="fr"><i>champ clos</i></span>.</p> + +<p class='c008'>And then to what base hypocrisies these amateur actors +descended! declaring to one another that, after all, <i>Claude</i> was +<em>not</em> such a great part! Nay, indeed, was not the heroic gardener +something of a spoon, liable to provoke laughter if his +velvet coat failed to fit, or his humble blouse looked too much +like a little boy’s pinafore? <i>Claude</i> might be a very fine part, +the amateurs argued to each other, in a regular theatre, where +there were the gallery fellows to applaud the long speeches, and +to stamp their hob-nailed boots in the great situations, and all +that sort of thing, you know; but your drawing-room audiences +are apt to laugh at strong sentiment; and, in short, for a private +performance, <i>Damas</i>, or <i>Beauseant</i>, or <i>Glavis</i> were the +great parts.</p> + +<p class='c008'>So there was a good deal of chopping and changing, with +vengeful feelings attendant thereupon; and at last, after almost +all the privileged guests at the Cedars had made themselves +hoarse in the endeavour to cultivate that bass voice and peculiar +melodious gurgle so often heard on the stage, and so rarely +heard off it; after innumerable tryings-on of velvet coats and +cocked hats before cheval-glasses,—it transpired all at once that +nobody wanted to play <i>Claude Melnotte</i>. The noblest hearts +sank with a sickly terror before the thought of all Twickenham +assembled in solemn conclave to listen to those long speeches +with which the peasant husband endeavours to appease the +<span class='pageno' id='Page_130'>130</span>natural anger of his bride. One by one the amateurs had made +the awful discovery, that after all there is some touch of art, +not to be learned in a day, even in the actor’s trade. One by +one they had discovered that they lacked <span lang="fr"><i>physique</i></span> for the +leading character; and that, after three acts or so of blank +verse, they were apt to become hoarse and roopy, and to break +ignominiously from that melodious bass gurgle into a treble +squeak. So it came about that there was no one to play <i>Claude</i>, +and Miss Hillary clasped her hands in anguish, and demanded +what was to become of her. All Twickenham and Hampton +Court, Richmond and Ham, and all sorts of people from town +invited to witness the “Lady of Lyons,” and no <i>Claude</i> +<i>Melnotte</i>! One of the government clerks, who fancied himself +an embryo Buckstone, timidly suggested “Box and Cox” as a +fitting substitute for the drama; but Miss Hillary turned from +him with disdain. “Box and Cox!” she exclaimed, contemptuously; +“why, my dresses are all ordered, and the white satin +for the wedding-dress is to be five-and-twenty shillings a yard. +I <em>must</em> have some one for <i>Claude</i>.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>And then at last it was discovered that Francis Tredethlyn, +who had volunteered to carry a tea-tray or a coal-scuttle, or to +announce a carriage, or to perform any ignominious part in the +drama for Miss Hillary’s pleasure,—it was discovered all at once +that this young man was able to act. He was no untaught +Macready, no ready-made Kean; but he was able to do what +the best of the government clerks and literary barristers failed +in doing; he was able to roll out the melodious blank verse in a +big, deep voice, that never failed him to the end of the chapter. +The stage is almost as great a leveller as death himself, and on +that little platform at Twickenham uneducated Francis Tredethlyn +was quite as much at his ease as the well-bred young +men about him: more at his ease, for he was not so bent upon +distinguishing himself, and was indeed only eager to oblige Miss +Hillary. All this had happened before the autumn visit to +Brighton; and now when Maude returned to the Cedars she +found busy workmen making a perpetual hammering in the +apartment which had been chosen for the scene of the entertainment. +Mr. Hillary did everything in a superb manner; there +was to be no pitiful contrivance of folding-doors festooned by +suburban carpenters, but accomplished people from town had +come down to the Cedars, and a magnificent archway of white +and gold spanned the lofty billiard-room which the merchant +had built at one end of his house. All the arrangements were +to be perfection; the lighting of the small stage was to be a +miracle of art; the grouping of the furniture had been studied +by <span lang="fr"><i>genre</i></span> painters of no mean pretensions. Poor Maude grew +sick at heart as she heard all these details discussed. She looked +<span class='pageno' id='Page_131'>131</span>back, and wondered, as she remembered what a frivolous creature +she had been only a few months ago, and how this amateur +dramatic performance had seemed a matter of supreme importance +to her; and now she repeated the words mechanically +during those long rehearsals, in the course of which the amateurs +had so many angry disputations, and so cruelly victimized Mr. +Hillary’s pale sherry.</p> + +<p class='c008'>At last the new year began, and at ten o’clock upon the first +night in January long lines of carriages filled the avenue at the +Cedars, and the road outside the lodge-gates, until the neighbourhood +was luminous with flaring lamps that glared redly in +the winter darkness. People came from far and wide to see +Miss Hillary play <i>Pauline</i>, and to devour Mr. Gunter’s supper, +though Miss Hillary’s heart might be breaking, and the merchant’s +head splitting with the weight of care that pressed just +now upon his overtaxed brain! But people <em>do</em> get through, +these things somehow; and Lionel Hillary walked about his +drawing-rooms, looking supremely gentlemanly in a stiff cambric +cravat, and uttering mild commonplaces for the edification of +new arrivals.</p> + +<p class='c008'>People get through these things. Poor Maude’s head ached +with a dull pain as her maid arrayed her in a dress of white silk, +showered with rosebuds, and flounced and looped with lace and +ribbon. Would any of this finery be paid for, Miss Hillary +wondered, as she saw her splendour reflected in the cheval-glass; +or was it altogether dishonesty and wickedness? She shuddered +as she thought of this: but the entertainment of to-night was +only a part of the grand hypocrisy which might help to float +Mr. Hillary safely over the terrible crisis, and Maude determined +to be true to her promise. So she smiled at Julia Desmond, +when that young lady, who was to play <i>Madame Deschappelles</i>, +came to exhibit herself in powder and patches, and brocade and +diamonds, and with half the point-lace in South Audley Street +bestowed upon her handsome person. Miss Desmond had consented +with amazing graciousness to perform the matronly <span lang="fr"><i>rôle</i></span> +allotted to her; but she had determined to look like a marquise +of the time of Louis Quinze, and she had despatched Francis +Tredethlyn on half-a-dozen shopping expeditions, until that gentleman +was fain to wonder how a few ribbons, brocaded fabrics, +and yellow old lace flounces, could cost the big sums for which +he wrote cheques in favour of the West-end tradesmen to whom +Julia sent him.</p> + +<p class='c008'>The two girls admired each other’s dresses, and the maid +joined in a perfect chorus of laudations with the young lady +who <em>would</em> play the <i>Widow Melnotte</i> in a nine-guinea black +moire antique, and a point-lace cap and apron, and who kept +snatching a manuscript copy of her part from her pocket, and +<span class='pageno' id='Page_132'>132</span>furtively gabbling its contents in dark corners. The girls admired +each other, and sailed down the broad staircase together, +and then went straight to a little ante-room, where half-a-dozen +gentlemen, in attitudes expressive of supreme mental agony, +were bending over half-a-dozen copies of the “Lady of Lyons,” +and gabbling vehemently.</p> + +<p class='c008'>There is no occasion to describe this amateur performance at +the Cedars, inasmuch as it very closely resembled all other +amateur performances. Miss Hillary, stepping on to a stage +for the first time, was, to say the least, not <em>quite</em> a Helen Faucit, +and was on the point of breaking down now and then in some +of her grand speeches; but she looked so beautiful in her perplexity +and confusion, that the elegant audience encouraged and +supported her by the gentlest tappings of spangled fans and +pattings of tight kid gloves. There were no tiresome boys in +the gallery to urge her to speak up; no critical chimney-sweeps +to murmur their disapproval, or hint that she had better go +home and learn her part. There was only admiration for her +timid loveliness, and the soft music of her tremulous voice.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Of course there were the usual number of dead pauses in the +drama, technically known as “stage-waits,” the solemn silences +in which the actors stood still and looked imploringly at one +another, while the voices of amateur prompters—always inciting +their victims to the utterance of long speeches—were painfully +audible throughout the assemblage. Mr. Tredethlyn rolled out +his blank verse with a sturdy courage that was worthy of all +praise; and if his hands were a little red, and his blue-cotton +blouse slightly suggestive of Newgate Market, he had acted with +his brother soldiers in very rough amateur performances out in +Van Diemen’s Land, and now and then some touch of natural +fire, some little bit of tender pathos, startled the well-bred +audience into applause. It may be that now and then Francis +Tredethlyn found himself carried away by the spirit of the +scene. Did not that romantic drama bear some likeness to his +own story? This beautiful <i>Pauline</i>, this unapproachable being +whose lovely image filled the peasant’s dreams, who was she but +Maude Hillary herself? Perhaps if Miss Desmond had been +the <i>Pauline</i>, Francis might have seemed as cold and tame as +the rest of the Twickenham amateurs: but the eyes that looked +at him tenderly or reproachfully to-night, were the only eyes in +all the world that had the power to move him deeply. He acted +well, therefore, as the dullest man will act sometimes under the +influence of some factitious excitement: and when the curtain +fell upon the final scene of happy and triumphant love, the +audience were loud in their praise of “that handsome-looking +Mr. Tredethlyn, who was just the very man for <i>Claude Melnotte</i>.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Then there was a final parting of the curtains and a shower +<span class='pageno' id='Page_133'>133</span>of bouquets, all in the orthodox style, and Maude felt perfumed +petals fluttering about her as she curtseyed to her indulgent +audience.</p> + +<p class='c008'>All through that last act she had surprised those well-bred +spectators out of their natural languor. The <i>Pauline</i> who had +been so tame and unimpassioned in the grand cottage scene, was +carried away by a strong tide of passionate feeling in that last +act, where the half broken-hearted daughter pleads for her insolvent +father. Sobs almost choked Miss Hillary’s utterance +more than once in this scene; and when at last her head lay for +a few moments on Francis Tredethlyn’s breast, the young man’s +martial decorations were wet with real tears. The sight of that +emotion moved him strangely, though he beheld in it nothing +more than the natural excitement of a highly sensitive organization. +After the little ovation that came with the close of the +drama, he followed Maude Hillary into the ante-room, where the +rest of the amateurs were discussing the night’s business, and +flirting with the splendid Julia, and thence to an inner room, less +brilliantly lighted, and quite unoccupied. Beyond this inner +room there was another apartment—the study in which Francis +had fallen an easy victim to the wiles of the Hibernian enchantress—and +it was to this room that Maude hurried, still followed +by Mr. Tredethlyn.</p> + +<p class='c008'>He had no business to follow her. He knew that very well. +His business was with Julia, who had acted <i>Madame Deschappelles</i> +with wonderful spirit, and for whom the evening had been +one long triumph, inasmuch as her lace, and diamonds, and +brocade, and dark eyes, and white teeth, had been the subjects +of universal admiration. Mr. Tredethlyn’s business lay in that +brilliantly-lighted ante-chamber where Julia sat amongst the +government clerks, and barristers, and grand military dandies, +while an accompaniment of perpetually popping champagne-corks +mingled pleasantly with the noise of their laughter. He +knew this, and yet he followed Maude to the dimly-lighted +study, where the red glow of the fire flickered on the bindings +of the books and the frames of the pictures. He could not leave +off being <i>Claude Melnotte</i> all in a moment. The exaltation of +the mimic scene was still upon him. Just now he had been +carried quite away by the influence of the poetic situation; and +when he flung down the sham money, which was to release the +merchant’s daughter from her hated suitor, a warmer thrill of +triumph had stirred his breast than had ever been engendered +by the possession of Oliver Tredethlyn’s thousands.</p> + +<p class='c008'>And now he could not fall back to his old position all at once. +Only a minute or two ago Maude Hillary had been sobbing on +his breast,—his bride, his wife; and he half fancied he had some +kind of right to sympathize with her emotion. He stopped +<span class='pageno' id='Page_134'>134</span>suddenly on the threshold of the study, quite unmanned by the +sight of Mr. Hillary’s daughter, half kneeling, half lying on the +ground, with her face buried in the cushions of a sofa, and her +hands clasped in a despairing attitude above the fair tangled +hair that had so lately lain upon his breast. Her whole frame +was shaken by the vehemence of her sobs; and before such a +picture as this it was scarcely strange if poor country-bred +Francis Tredethlyn quite forgot that he was <em>not</em> Claude Melnotte. +He bent over the prostrate girl, and laid his big fingers gently +upon one of those little bejewelled hands clasped so convulsively +above the fair head.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Miss Hillary,” he exclaimed, “dear Miss Hillary, for pity’s +sake, tell me what distresses you—what has happened—what is +wrong—or—I—I beg your pardon—you have over-fatigued +yourself, and you are hysterical; let me send for your maid.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Oh, no, no, no!” cried the girl, rising to her feet, and standing +before him, but with her face still hidden from him, hidden by +her outspread hands and her dishevelled hair.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Shall I call Julia? she is in the room yonder.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Oh, no! I—I want to speak to you, Mr. Tredethlyn; stay +just a little, please. Ah! it is so hard, so cruel, but the last +chance! In all the world there is no one else who can save me—and +my father—my poor, miserable, bankrupt father!”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Francis looked at Miss Hillary in complete bewilderment. +Her father—her bankrupt father! Why, then she was still +thinking of the scene that was just finished, and the commercial +troubles of Monsieur Deschappelles; which character, by the +way, had been enacted by a very young man of a sickly cast of +countenance, and an inclination to hang his head dejectedly +throughout the performance of the drama. It is a rule amongst +amateurs to assign the elderly and ineligible characters to the +youngest and meekest members of the company; whereby Monsieur +Deschappelles is usually represented as a young person of +some nineteen summers, with flour in his hair, dirty streaks, +supposed to represent wrinkles, upon his face, and a tendency +to squeakiness in his voice.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I am sure you are over-fatigued, over-excited by the play,” +urged Francis; “do let me call Julia.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“No!” cried Miss Hillary, dropping her hands from before her +face. “Oh, Mr. Tredethlyn,” she exclaimed, almost passionately, +“can’t you understand—can’t you see that I am in earnest? +Do you think that scene just now would have made me cry as +it did, if it had not reminded me of my own sorrow? Mr. Tredethlyn—I—I +know you are a good man, that you would not be +slow to do a kindness for anyone who needed your help; I know +that; and I—I thought I should have courage to speak to you, +but now the words won’t come—I⸺”</p> + +<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_135'>135</span>Her dry lips moved, but made no sound. She clasped her +hands once more before her face. Heaven knows how desperate +was the effort that she made. It is not such an easy matter +to borrow twenty thousand pounds; even though the borrower +may be young and beautiful, and accustomed to perpetual adoration.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Miss Hillary, you speak of help—needing help—from <em>me</em>. +For mercy’s sake, tell me how I can help you. Do you think +there is anything upon earth that would give me such pride +and delight as to be of service to you?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>The enthusiasm of the moment lighted up Francis Tredethlyn’s +countenance like a sudden glow of summer sunshine. +Maude uncovered her face and looked at him, and saw at once +that her cause was gained; her father’s preserver was found. +She had not counted in vain upon Francis Tredethlyn.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I want you to lend papa twenty thousand pounds,” she +said; “I know that he will repay you honourably. He has +some difficulties—terrible difficulties in his business,—but the +loan of twenty thousand pounds would smooth them all away. +I know that you are very, very rich, Mr. Tredethlyn, and that +you can afford to lend such a sum of money, or I should never +have dared⸺”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“You would not have dared, Miss Hillary? Oh, can you +doubt that I would give the last sixpence I have in the world, +the last drop of my heart’s-blood, to save you from one pang? +Twenty thousand pounds! Take forty—fifty thousand—the +utmost farthing of my fortune, if you will; squander it—throw +it into the river yonder, if the waste of it can give you a +moment’s pleasure. Oh, you don’t know, you don’t know how I +love you!”</p> + +<p class='c008'>He had been acting <i>Claude Melnotte</i>, and the intoxication +of the sweet sentimental poetry was strong upon him; beyond +which it is just possible that he may have taken a little more +sparkling Moselle in the course of his dramatic exertions than +can safely be taken by a young man of sanguine temperament. +All prudence, all power of reticence, left him in that moment, +and he dropped on his knees at Miss Hillary’s feet, like a lover +in a stage-play. She was so beautiful—she seemed so far away +from him even now, when her distress had brought her a little +nearer than of old,—that this attitude of adoration seemed +quite natural to him, almost the only attitude in which he +dared address her.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Oh, if you knew how I love you,” he cried, passionately,—“if +you could only believe or understand! But I am so ignorant—so +unworthy—so far beneath you!”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Miss Hillary drew herself away from him with a gesture of +mingled surprise and disgust.</p> + +<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_136'>136</span>“You dare to talk to me like this, and you are the affianced +husband of my friend!” she cried. “O, Mr. Tredethlyn, you +take a very mean advantage of my father’s difficulties and my +distress.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Yes!” answered Julia Desmond from the doorway. She +had been standing on the threshold for the last few moments, +watching this interview behind the scenes. “Yes! it is altogether +mean and shameful, Maude Hillary. You have taken +a noble course, I think, when you fling your father’s debts upon +the man who was to be my husband, and coolly ask him for the +trifling loan of twenty thousand pounds.” She laughed bitterly +as she named the sum. “Twenty thousand pounds—and you +ask your friend’s lover to turn money-lender; and you bring +your tears and hysterical sobs, and a thousand pretty amateur +dramatic devices to bear, in order to obtain what you want, and +all in the most childish innocence, of course. And then you +turn upon the man whom you have lured to your feet by a +hundred tricks and artifices, and make a charming show of +surprise and indignation. Ah! it is shameful, Maude Hillary—mean +and cruel and false; and bitter shame shall come to +you for this night’s work.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>The Irishwoman was superb in her indignation. Those +flashing eyes and glittering teeth, hereditary in the race of the +Desmonds, seemed to light her face with an infernal kind of +splendour: such a splendour had many a fated victim seen +upon the countenance of the duelling Irish colonel, just before +he fell prone on some lonely field beside the Shannon. It was +against Maude that the fuller fury of Julia Desmond’s rage was +directed,—against Maude, of whom she had always been jealous, +in whom she had continually found a triumphant rival. It +was only after that outburst of jealous rage that Julia turned +upon her recreant lover. Francis had risen from his knees, and +stood a little way from the two girls, with a dogged moodiness +upon his face: he was sobered by Maude’s indignation and +Julia’s passion, and he was dimly aware that he had acted like +a scoundrel.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“As for you, Mr. Francis Tredethlyn,” Miss Desmond said +presently, “I suppose I have no need to tell you that all is +over between us, and that I bitterly repent the humiliation my +own folly has brought upon me. I should have known how +much I risked when I stooped to regard a person whose code +of honour belongs to a different world from that in which I +have been reared. I suppose amongst <em>your</em> people it is the +fashion for a man to pledge himself to one woman and then +make love to another; but such is <em>not</em> the custom in the circles +where the Desmonds have been used to be welcome. I +should have known what I had to expect when I came into +<span class='pageno' id='Page_137'>137</span>this house. I should have known what I had to anticipate +when I trusted in the truth and loyalty of a man who is not a +gentleman.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Throughout this speech Julia’s hands had been moving +rapidly, but with unfailing purpose, though they trembled a +little all the while. One by one she had unfastened the diamond +ornaments that had glittered upon her head and wrists, +her throat and bosom; and now the jewels lay in a little heap +at the feet of Francis Tredethlyn. One by one she had thrown +them there during that passionate speech. She <em>could</em> not act +her play out. She had been unable to support the character +she had undertaken. The fiery blood of the Ryan O’Brien +Desmond had asserted itself in spite of all the promptings of +prudence, all the bitter schooling of experience. It was very +dreadful to be poor and dependent; it would have been delightful +to be mistress of thirty thousand a year: but Julia +Desmond, coming to the threshold of the study, had heard +Maude’s appeal for the twenty thousand pounds, and Francis +Tredethlyn’s impassioned avowal; and patience and policy had +alike deserted her. Carried away by the impulse of the moment, +she renounced everything. At last Francis Tredethlyn +spoke for himself.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I know that I have acted very badly,” he said. “I had +no right to speak; I never should have spoken but for that +play. I think I must have almost fancied myself that poor +gardener’s son, who dared to worship the brightest creature +that ever crossed his pathway, and in an evil hour told her of +his madness. Ah, forgive me, Miss Hillary; do not hate or +despise me for what I said just now; let it pass like the play +in which we acted to-night. And you, Julia—Miss Desmond, +I am not too proud to ask your forgiveness for the wrong I +have done you. I have been very guilty, and I accept your +reproaches in all their bitterness. But when I promised to be +your true and faithful husband, I only made a promise that I +am still prepared to fulfil. You will at least do me the justice +to remember that I did not profess any warmer feeling than +admiration and esteem.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Your justification is only a new insult, Mr. Tredethlyn,” +Julia answered, coldly. “I wish you good night.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Her passion had been something terrible in its suppressed +vehemence some moments before; but she was quite calm now. +She swept towards the door leading out into the corridor; but +as she passed the merchant’s daughter, she stopped, just long +enough to utter one brief sentence close in the young lady’s ear.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“You shall suffer for this, Miss Hillary,” she said,—</p> + +<p class='c008'>She left the room; but Maude followed her, crying “Julia! +Julia!”</p> + +<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_138'>138</span>She hurried along the corridor and up the staircase, following +closely upon Miss Desmond; but when she reached that young +lady’s room, the door was shut in her face, and only one answer +came to her almost piteous pleadings for admission,—</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I have nothing to say to you, Miss Hillary. I only regret +that I must pass one more night in this house.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>So Maude was obliged to go away in despair, and, meeting +her maid at the door of her own room, was informed that Mr. +Hillary had been inquiring for her, “ever so many times,” the +maid said; “and I’ve been looking for you everywhere, Miss, to +know when you’d have your dress changed.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Yes, there was to be more changing of dresses before Maude’s +work was done. She resigned herself with a sigh to the hands +of the young person who waited upon her; and then went down-stairs, +gorgeous in pink silk and crape puffings, and with a crown +of dewy rosebuds on her head, to receive the compliments and +congratulations of her father’s friends, and to act her part in +that social drama which was quite as difficult a performance as +the “Lady of Lyons.”</p> + +<p class='c007'>Francis Tredethlyn sat quite alone in the little dimly-lighted +study at the end of the long, rambling mansion, while Mr. Hillary’s +guests finished the evening with a little dancing, a great +deal of flirting, and a perpetual sipping of sparkling wines, in +out-of-the-way corridors and lobbies, where there were hothouse +flowers and low chintz-covered ottomans, and an air of loneliness +conducive to flirtation. Francis Tredethlyn sat alone, with +Julia’s diamonds still lying at his feet, and brooded over his +position. He had outraged Maude, whom he adored. He had injured +Julia, to whom he was bound by every sentiment of honour +and good faith. No words can express the bitterness of his remorse +as he sat pondering upon what he had done. “False to +my cousin Susan, false to Julia Desmond,” he thought; “nothing +but mischief has come to me since I inherited that miserable +money. I have no right to be amongst these people. I never +should have come to this house, where <em>her</em> presence has always +seemed to turn my brain.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>He looked down at the diamonds lying on the carpet, and +smiled bitterly as he remembered how much money they represented,—more +than had been spent on Susan Tredethlyn in all +the girl’s joyless life—ten times more than would have restored +the young man’s father to solvency and comfort, that time when +his uncle refused him the loan of two hundred pounds.</p> + +<p class='c008'>He stopped and gathered together the fallen jewels. There +was a writing-table near him, with pens, and paper, and sealing-wax, +and all necessary implements. He selected a large sheet +of paper, and packed the diamonds into a parcel. But before +<span class='pageno' id='Page_139'>139</span>sealing the packet he wrote a few lines on the margin of the +paper,—</p> + +<p class='c012'>“<span class='sc'>Dear Miss Desmond</span>,</p> + +<p class='c010'>“I beg you to retain the enclosed. They were given to you +as an evidence of my esteem and admiration, as well as of my +gratitude for your indulgent kindness to one so much beneath +you as myself. I implore you to forget and pardon what has +happened to-night. I am too ignorant of the world in which +you live to know what I ought to do; and I can only assure you +that I am ready to submit myself entirely to your discretion, +and still hold myself bound by every word I said in this room +on the day when you promised to be my wife.</p> + +<div class='c011'><span class="closing">“Yours sincerely,</span></div> + +<div class='c011'>“<span class='sc'>Francis Tredethlyn</span>.”</div> + +<p class='c007'>No one but the servants knew when or how Mr. Tredethlyn +left the Cedars on that first night of the New Year; but a little +before one o’clock the next day a letter was delivered to Mr. +Hillary—a letter from the assistant-manager of a certain bank +in the City, informing the merchant that a sum of twenty +thousand pounds had that morning been placed to his credit.</p> + +</div> + +<div class='pbb'> + <hr class='pb c001'> +</div> +<div> + +<div> + <h2 class='c003'><a id='chapter-XVII'></a>CHAPTER XVII.<br> <br><span class='fss'>SOMETHING LIKE FRIENDSHIP.</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>Maude Hillary did not rise very early after that New Year’s +entertainment at the Cedars; painful emotions, troubles, doubts, +and perplexities, that had been unknown to her through all her +previous lifetime, had crowded suddenly upon her within the +last few weeks, and it was scarcely strange if she well-nigh +fainted under the burden. She slept for some hours on that +first night of the year,—slept the feverish, heavy slumber that +waits upon trouble of mind and exhaustion of body. The winter +sun shone with a chill brightness between the rose-coloured +draperies of her window when she awoke from a painful dream +to a dim sense of actual trouble that was still more painful. +She remembered the scene of the previous night, her own desperate +appeal for help, Francis Tredethlyn’s avowal, and Julia’s +indignation. She remembered all this with a burning sense of +shame, and with a tender and pitying regret for Julia’s wrongs.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“And he did not love her!” she thought, “when I fancied +they were so happy and united, so much what lovers ought to +be; it was all false, after all, and he had deceived her. But +why? What motive could he have for doing her so great a +wrong?”</p> + +<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_140'>140</span>Miss Hillary pondered upon this mystery while she dressed,—unaided +this morning, for she did not care to endure her maid’s +sympathetic remarks upon her pale face and heavy eyes; unaided, +for how soon that pretty Twickenham paradise, with all +its dependencies, might pass away from her, unsubstantial as +the fairy palace in which Princess Balroubadour floated away to +Africa! Maude put on her plainest morning dress, and went +straight to Julia’s room, intending to make her peace with that +young lady, at any cost of self-humiliation. No base thought +of Julia’s obligations, no remembrance of the favours that had +been heaped upon the Irish girl in that hospitable habitation, +had any place in Maude Hillary’s mind. She thought of her +friend as tenderly as she might have thought of an only sister, +and she remembered nothing except the great wrong that had +been done to Julia by the defection of her lover. The breach +between them was not to be narrowed. When Maude entered +her friend’s bedroom, she only found an empty and desolate-looking +apartment, in which open wardrobes and drawers, and +a dressing-table, cleared of all its pretty frivolities, bore witness +to the angry Julia’s departure.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Miss Hillary’s maid came running along the corridor, while +her mistress stood amazed in Miss Desmond’s deserted chamber.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Oh, Miss,” cried the girl, “to think as you should get up and +dress yourself without a bit of help, while I’ve been waiting and +listening for the bell these last two hours! Miss Desmond, she +have gone, Miss, above an hour ago, and have took all her boxes +in a fly to the station, but wouldn’t have none of the servants to +go with her; and Oh, Miss, she looked as white as that toilet-cover.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>That was all Maude could hear of her sometime friend’s +abrupt departure from that pleasant dwelling-place, in which +she had enjoyed such a luxurious home. This was all that the +servants could tell their young mistress about the splendid +Julia; but in the study, where the scene of the previous night +had been enacted, Maude found a letter directed to herself, in +Miss Desmond’s handwriting. It was a very brief missive; +almost such a one as an English Elizabeth, or a Russian Catherine, +might have written.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“For your father’s hospitality,” wrote Miss Desmond, “I +shall always remain grateful, and shall be sorry to hear of any +evil that may befall him. The debt I owe to <em>you</em> I shall also +know how to remember, and shall wait the time and opportunity +for its repayment.—J. D.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Maude sat for some time musing sorrowfully upon this oracular +epistle. She was not in any wise terrified by her friend’s +threats; she was only sorry for Julia’s disappointment.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“She must have loved Francis Tredethlyn very dearly,” Miss +<span class='pageno' id='Page_141'>141</span>Hillary thought, sorrowfully, “or she would never feel his conduct +so deeply. And yet I have often fancied that she spoke of +him coldly, almost contemptuously.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Poor Maude Hillary’s lessons in the mysteries of every-day +life had only just begun; she had yet to learn that there are +other disappointments than those which wait upon true love, +other pains and sorrows than those which have their root in +the heart; and that there are such things as marrying and +giving in marriage for the love of thirty thousand a year.</p> + +<p class='c008'>She spent a weary day in the pleasant drawing-room, where +the red glow of a great fire illuminated as much prettiness in the +way of china, and Parian, and bronze, and ormolu, and enamel, +as would have stocked a <span lang="fr"><i>bric-à-brac</i></span> shop in Wardour Street. +She spent a tiresome day, that seemed interminably long, lying +on a low sofa near the fire, thinking of her father’s troubles and +Julia’s desertion. She thought also of that cruel scene, in which +she had seemed to play so contemptible a part. What bitter +humiliation it was to look back upon, now that the mad impulse +of the moment, the desperate courage that had made her snatch +at <em>any</em> chance of help for her father, had altogether passed +away! How mean and pitiful the whole business seemed now +to her calmer judgment, looked upon in the cold light of common, +sense! A borrower, a beggar almost, a miserable suppliant to +her friend’s affianced husband. What wonder that Francis +Tredethlyn had basely taken advantage of that false position, to +avow a passion whose least expression was an insult to her on +the lips of Julia Desmond’s lover? And then what wasted +humiliation, what unnecessary shame; for had not she turned +upon him and upbraided him in the next moment, forgetful of +her father’s desperate need!</p> + +<p class='c008'>Such thoughts as these were scarcely pleasant company all +through that brief January day, which seemed so long to Maude +Hillary. The slow hours crept on, and she still lay tossing restlessly +on the sofa, which offered all that upholstery can offer +for the consolation of a troubled mind. A servant brought +lamps, and crept from window to window, drawing the curtains +as stealthily as a burglar would have cut a square out of the +iron door of Mr. Hillary’s plate-room. The first dinner-bell +rang out in the old-fashioned cupola upon the roof, and informed +all Twickenham that it was time for the people at the Cedars to +array themselves for the evening meal: but Maude still lay +upon the sofa, hiding her flushed face in the pillows, and trying +to quiet the throbbing in her burning head. What did it +matter? The poor inexperienced girl broke down all at once in +her social comedy. She could act the wearisome play no longer; +she wanted to give up all her share in this world, and to go to +bed and lie there quietly until she died. All the common business +<span class='pageno' id='Page_142'>142</span>of life seemed unutterably loathsome to her,—the dressing +and dining, the simpering small-talk, the finery of a grand house +no longer honestly maintained. Oh, that it could all be swept +away like the vision engendered out of some troubled slumber; +giving place to a suburban cottage and a life of decent toil!</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I have seen girls—well-bred, good-looking girls, trudging +in the muddy London streets, with music portfolios in their +arms, while I have been out shopping in my carriage,” she +thought. “Oh, if I could only be like one of these, and work +for papa, and see him happy, smiling at me across our little +table, as I gave him his dinner, and not brooding as he does +now, hour after hour, hour after hour, in this grand drawing-room, +with the same settled look of trouble on his face!”</p> + +<p class='c008'>It was not only of late that Maude had watched her father +anxiously and sadly. Very often during the year just passed, +and even in the year preceding that, the girl had been alarmed +by Lionel Hillary’s moody looks and long gloomy reveries, out +of which it was his wont to rouse himself in a mechanical kind +of way when strangers were present. But the merchant always +gave the same explanation of his sombre looks. Those headaches, +those constitutional headaches, which came upon him +constantly through the fatigue and worry of business—those +terrible headaches made an excuse for everything, and Maude’s +fears about her father related solely to his health. How should +she understand the dismal diagnosis of commercial disease? +How should she imagine that there was any limit to the fairy +purse of Fortunatus—any chance of a blight in Aladdin’s +orchard of jewelled fruits?</p> + +<p class='c008'>The second dinner-bell rang, and there was no sign of the +merchant’s return. It had been a common thing lately for +Lionel Hillary to keep his cook in a fever of vexation over the +hot plates and furnaces where the viands for the diurnal banquet +simmered and frizzled in their copper receptacles. Maude felt +no special alarm about her father. Why should he hurry home +to lengthen the long evening of brooding thought and care? +Why should she wish him home, when, out of all the depth of +her love and devotion, she could not conjure one word of comfort +wherewith to greet him?</p> + +<p class='c008'>She was thinking this when the door was opened suddenly +by an eager hand, and Mr. Hillary came into the room.</p> + +<p class='c008'>His daughter rose from the sofa, startled by the suddenness +of his entrance. It is a small action, that of opening a door, +and entering a room; but there was as great a change in Mr. +Hillary’s performance of it, as if twenty years had suddenly +been lifted from his life.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“My darling!” he cried, taking his daughter in his arms, “it +is you whom I have to thank. It was your doing, was it not?”</p> + +<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_143'>143</span>“What, papa?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“The money—the twenty thousand pounds.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Twenty thousand pounds!”</p> + +<p class='c008'>She thought the burning pain in her head had engendered +some sudden delirium. She could not believe that this was her +father’s face, lighted by a hopeful smile, such as she had not +seen upon it during the last three years.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“What twenty thousand pounds, papa?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“The sum that has been placed to my credit to-day anonymously. +The bank people refused to tell me the name of my +benefactor. I look to you, Maude, to solve the mystery. There +is only one man whom I know of, rich enough to advance such +a sum of money—young enough to do it in so Utopian a manner. +There is only one man, Maude, and his name is Francis +Tredethlyn. Tell me, my dear, have I guessed rightly?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“You have, papa. Yes, I am sure you have. Poor fellow! +and I was so angry with him last night. It was very good of +him to do this, papa.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Good of him!” cried the merchant—“good of him to lend +twenty thousand pounds, without a halfpennyworth of security! +Upon my word, Maude, it <em>is</em> good; and I can assure you it’s a +kind of goodness that is very uncommon in the City.”</p> + +</div> + +<div class='pbb'> + <hr class='pb c001'> +</div> +<div> + +<div> + <h2 class='c003'><a id='chapter-XVIII'></a>CHAPTER XVIII.<br> <br><span class='fss'>POOR FRANCIS.</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>From the second day of the New Year things went pleasantly +enough in the Twickenham household. How could Maude do +otherwise than rejoice in the salvation of her father’s honour—to +say nothing of his commercial prosperity—even though that +salvation had been obtained by a great humiliation on her own +part? She would have borne that humiliation very willingly, +and would have freely acknowledged her obligation to Francis +Tredethlyn, could she have seen Julia Desmond reconciled to +her lover. But the separation between these two, which had +arisen out of the scene on New Year’s night, was a perpetual +reproach to Maude Hillary.</p> + +<p class='c008'>She was not able to be quite happy, therefore, even though +such a terrible burden had been lifted from her,—even though +she saw the dark cloud swept away from her father’s face. Her +girlish frivolity had departed from her for ever on that terrible +night in her father’s study at Brighton; and there was a +womanly softness, a pensive tenderness in her manner now, +that made her even more bewitching than of old. Her affection +for her father—always the ruling passion of her simple mind—had +<span class='pageno' id='Page_144'>144</span>been intensified by that fiery ordeal through which she had +so lately passed; and there was something very beautiful in the +union which now existed between the father and daughter. +Mr. Hillary had been surprised into confidences that made a +new tie between himself and his child. He could never again +entirely withheld his secrets from that tender friend and +consoler. He could never again think of her as a beautiful, +frivolous creature, only intended to wear expensive dresses and +float about in graceful attitudes amongst the costly <span lang="fr"><i>bric-à-brac</i></span> +of a fashionable drawing-room. He had learned to trust his +child; and poor Maude applied herself diligently to the study of +the customs and dealings common in that mysterious region +known to her as the City. She tried to understand her father’s +position—for she was tormented by a feverish anxiety as to the +repayment of Francis Tredethlyn’s twenty thousand pounds; +but the complications of an Australian merchant’s trade, as +affected by wars, and rumours of wars, by alterations in the +rate of discount and the price of Consols, were a little beyond +Miss Hillary’s comprehension, and she was fain to give up +the attempt in despair, and to accept any statement which +her father cared to make to her respecting the altered aspect +of his affairs.</p> + +<p class='c008'>There was less company at the Cedars than usual during the +bleak early months of the year. Mr. Hillary worked very +sedulously in the City during this time, and did not care to +fill his house with frivolous young idlers or ponderous City-bred +matrons and their fashionably-educated daughters. The +recklessness engendered by the contemplation of inevitable ruin +had given place to the careful dealing of a man who has a difficult +but not impossible task allotted to him. You can scarcely +expect the daughters of King Danäus to labour very arduously +in the filling of those buckets which they <em>know</em> will not hold +water; but if the buckets are only thin at the bottom, and <em>may</em> +possibly carry their contents safely to the well, it is worth while +to work conscientiously.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Francis Tredethlyn’s twenty thousand pounds had done +wonders for Lionel Hillary; but the dry-rot had been for a long +time at work in that stately ship of which the merchant was +captain, and the successful navigation of the vessel, amidst all +the rocks and shoals and tempests of the commercial ocean, +was by no means an easy duty.</p> + +<p class='c008'>But Mr. Hillary was sanguine, and his daughter saw the +new hopefulness and brightness of his face, and was very nearly +happy. She was not quite happy, for Harcourt Lowther’s letters +grew more despondent and complaining by every mail. +He reproached Maude Hillary for her prosperity and her indifference; +she must be indifferent, he argued, or she would +<span class='pageno' id='Page_145'>145</span>have succeeded ere this in obtaining her father’s consent to her +marriage with the penniless officer. “There are girls who will +go through fire and water for the man they love,” he wrote in +an epistle that was half filled with fierce reproaches. “I have +seen the power of a woman’s devotion; but then <em>that</em> woman +was only a poor simple creature, and not the daughter of a +millionaire. I cannot believe that you could fail to influence +your father, if you really cared to do so. If you loved me, +Maude, this business would have been settled long ago.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Did she love him? That was a question which she had never +set herself to answer. Had they not engaged themselves to +each other in the prettiest and most sentimental fashion, like +a modern Master of Ravenswood and Lucy Ashton? Maude +took the fact of her love for granted. All the sweetest and +tenderest dreams of her life were mingled with the memory of +Harcourt Lowther. He was so superior to all the other men +who had paid her their homage; and it may be that his contemptuous +bearing towards those other men had been a part of +the fascination of his manner. He had affected that modern +Edgar Ravenswood tone—that elegant Timon of Athens-ism—which +is so intensely charming in the eyes of a very young +woman, however spurious it may be. And with all this, he had +been so devoted, so delightfully exacting, so deliciously jealous! +Maude looked back to the one sentimental period of her life, +and saw Harcourt Lowther’s image radiant in all the light of +her own youthful fancies. So the worshipper in a village chapel +sees some poor painted wooden figure of a saint glorified by the +glitter of tapers, the brightness of flowers and draperies and +decorations. How was she to separate the lamps and the flowers +about the shrine from the image which they adorned? How +was she to discover the paltry nature of that clay out of which +the graceful figure was fashioned? Harcourt Lowther represented +to her all that was brightest and best in her early girlhood; +and sitting alone, through long and thoughtful hours, in +the empty rooms at the Cedars, Maude Hillary brooded very +sadly upon the only love-story of her life.</p> + +<p class='c008'>She had ventured to speak of Harcourt to her father once +since the beginning of the year; but her timid pleading had +been met by a cruel repulse.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Understand me at once and for ever, Maude,” Lionel +Hillary said, sternly; “such a marriage as that can never be. +If you were the great heiress people think you, I might gratify +this whim, as I have gratified other fancies, foolish and extravagant +in their way. But the road I am now treading is by no +means too secure under my feet, and I cannot afford to see my +only child the wife of a penniless adventurer. I want to see +you happy, Maude, but not after a sentimental girl’s notion of +<span class='pageno' id='Page_146'>146</span>happiness. I know what all those pretty theories about a suburban +cottage and poverty come to when they are put into practice. +I have seen the slipshod maid-of-all-work, and the miserable +dinners, and the Kidderminster carpets, and stale bread and +rank butter, that belong to love in a cottage. And more than +this, Maude, I know that Harcourt Lowther is the very last +man to ally himself to a dowerless wife.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Ah, how little you know him!” Maude murmured, softly. +She thought she knew her lover so well herself, and fancied him +the most generous and devoted of men because he had given +her a few half-guinea bouquets, purchased on credit from a confiding +florist. “Ah, dear papa, how little you know him! He +is always reproaching me with my fortune, and lamenting the +gulf it has made between us. Let me tell him of your difficulties; +let me tell him that I am no longer a millionaire’s +daughter, that I am free to marry the man I love. Ah, let me +tell him⸺”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Not a word, Maude,” answered Lionel Hillary—“not a +word to that man, if you have any love or respect for your father. +Remember that I have trusted you with secrets that a man +seldom confides to his daughter.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“And your confidence shall be sacred, papa,” Miss Hillary +replied, submissively. And thus ended her intercession in favour +of Harcourt Lowther.</p> + +<p class='c008'>She was fain to be contented, however, remembering the great +trouble which had been so near her, and which a merciful hand +had lifted away. She was fain to remember, shudderingly, the +feverish horror of that night at Brighton, and to think gratefully +of Francis Tredethlyn, to whom she owed her father’s +rescue. She was grateful to him; but she could not put entirely +away from her the sense of shame left by that scene in +the study, and Julia Desmond’s passionate reproaches. She +could not forget that it was for her sake Francis Tredethlyn had +helped her father, and that the burden of a great obligation +must rest upon her shoulders until that loan of twenty thousand +pounds was repaid. Poor Maude’s unbusiness-like mind entirely +ignored any such thing as interest for Mr. Tredethlyn’s +money. She only thought of the loan itself, and the question +of its repayment was perpetually in her mind. Had she not +been the suppliant, at whose suit the money had been lent? +and was she not in a manner the actual debtor?</p> + +<p class='c008'>Things were much better in the City, her father told her; but +upon two or three occasions when she had ventured to hint her +anxiety respecting the early repayment of Francis Tredethlyn’s +money, the merchant’s answers had filled her mind with vague +disquietude. There was an indifference in Mr. Hillary’s manner +that alarmed Maude’s keen sense of right and honour.</p> + +<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_147'>147</span>“Tredethlyn is too well off to want his money in any desperate +hurry, my dear,” he said; “he is not likely to become a very +pressing creditor.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>The hedgerows about Isleworth and Twickenham were green, +with their earliest buds before Francis Tredethlyn came again to +the Cedars. Mr. Hillary had called upon the young man at his +hotel several times before he succeeded in seeing him, and had +only with great difficulty wrung from him an admission of the +fact that he was the anonymous lender of the twenty thousand +pounds that had saved the merchant from ruin and disgrace.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“My dear Tredethlyn, why should you insist upon any disguise?” +Mr. Hillary said, with a pleasant ease that not every +man could have maintained in such a position as that in which +the merchant found himself with regard to this simple-minded, +country-bred Crœsus. “Is it not enough to have been the +most generous of men, without trying to carry generosity to +the verge of Quixotism? How can I doubt the identity of my +preserver? I know that Maude betrayed my necessities to you, +under the excitement of those unfortunate theatricals, and I +know that loans of twenty thousand pounds do <em>not</em> drop from +the skies. My dear fellow, I am most heartily thankful to you +for what you have done. It was a very noble thing to do, an +action that any man might be proud of doing. If I had ever +doubted your having good blood in your veins, your conduct in +this one matter would have settled my doubts. But I never +did doubt it, my dear Tredethlyn. I have recognized you from +the first as a gentleman; not by the right of an accidental +thirty thousand a year, scraped out of all manner of commercial +gutters by a miserly uncle; but by virtue of some of the best +blood in the West of England.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>And then Mr. Hillary stretched out both his hands, and shook +those of Francis Tredethlyn in his vigorous grasp; and altogether +the interview could scarcely have been more entirely +satisfactory had the merchant written a cheque for the twenty +thousand pounds on the spot. Indeed, to Francis any immediate +repayment of that money would have been a grievous +mortification. Was it not delightful to him to remember that +he had been of service to <em>her</em> father? Was not the money +advanced to the merchant a kind of link between Maude and +the man who loved her so dearly and so hopelessly,—only a +very sordid, earthy link; but better than none?</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I offended her very much that night,” Francis thought; +“but perhaps she will forgive me, and remember me kindly, +when she thinks that I have been useful to her father.” But +when Mr. Hillary begged Francis to renew his visits to +Twickenham, the young man resisted those friendly invitations +as obstinately as if the Cedars had been the most obnoxious +<span class='pageno' id='Page_148'>148</span>place upon earth. He could not muster up courage to encounter +Maude Hillary after that scene in the little study. +What if he had offended too deeply for forgiveness? What +if she slew him with a frozen glance from her lovely eyes? +Again and again in his lonely rides, emboldened by the dusky +twilight of the early spring evenings, he had ventured to +haunt the neighbourhood of the old brick-built mansion by the +river; but he could not bring himself to go any nearer to the +shrine of his divinity; and he made all manner of lame excuses +in answer to Mr. Hillary’s cordial invitations.</p> + +<p class='c008'>He was only a clod; only an uneducated rustic, newly cast +upon a strange world, open to all the pleasant snares which are +laid for the simple-minded possessor of thirty thousand a year. +Heaven only knows the perils and temptations into which some +young men would have fallen under similar circumstances. It is +something in Francis Tredethlyn’s favour that his worst mistake +was to fall desperately in love with Maude Hillary, and +wear his horse’s shoes out in disconsolate rides about the twilit +lanes and roads in the neighbourhood of her dwelling-place.</p> + +<p class='c008'>And in the mean time Messrs. Kursdale and Scardon were +supposed to be busily employed in their search for the missing +girl, who might or might not have any right to another name +than that of Susan Tredethlyn. Very little came of the lawyers’ +endeavours. Several advertisements had been inserted in +the “Times;” but it is to be feared that the lost and missing advertised +for in those columns are too often wanderers in a weary +region, far removed from that comfortable sphere of life in +which the morning papers are punctually delivered to enliven +the breakfast-table. No reply came to any of those mysteriously-worded +appeals to Francis Tredethlyn’s cousin which +were concocted by the young man and his legal advisers; and +the image of the friendless girl grew paler and fainter day by +day in the mind of Maude Hillary’s adorer.</p> + +<p class='c008'>At last Fortune—who will generally do anything in the +world for us, if we have patience enough to wait her own time +for doing it—brought about the result which Francis Tredethlyn +had so obstinately avoided, yet so fondly desired. Lounging +against the rails one brilliant April day at the corner opposite +Apsley House, Francis saw Maude Hillary’s carriage drive into +the Park.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Yes, there she was, with her sunny hair framed in spring +blossoms and white areophane. The young man seemed to +behold the vision of an angel in a Parisian bonnet, and half +wondered if the folds of her white burnous were not a pair of +downy pinions floating away from her divine shoulders. He +grew very red and uncomfortable, and in another moment +would have yielded to the impulse that prompted him to seek +<span class='pageno' id='Page_149'>149</span>refuge in flight; but before he could do so, the carriage was +close to the rails, Maude Hillary had recognized him, and had +told the coachman to stop.</p> + +<p class='c008'>She was not offended with him, then; she forgave him, and +thought of him kindly. His heart swelled with a rapture that +was almost overpowering. Ah! <em>this</em> was love. How different +from that placid sense of affection with which he had regarded +his cousin, Susy! how much more delicious! how infinitely more +painful!</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I have wanted so much to see you, Mr. Tredethlyn,” Maude +said, after shaking hands with her bewildered adorer; “why +have you never been to Twickenham?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I—I—don’t like—I thought you were angry with me,” +stammered Francis, very awkwardly. Ah, how sad it is that the +presence of those we love best, and in whose eyes we would +most desire to appear at an advantage, should entail upon us +the annihilation of anything like ease or grace of manner! +Mr. Tredethlyn felt himself becoming purple and apoplectic, +under the influence of that seraphic creature, whose image had +filled his mind unceasingly for the last six months.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Angry with you!” exclaimed Maude; “how should I be +otherwise than grateful to you, when I remember how good you +have been to papa? Believe me, Mr. Tredethlyn, I am not too +proud to own the extent of our obligation. I thank you most +sincerely. You can never know how grateful I am for the +service you have rendered my dear father.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>She bent her head, and the spring-flowers in her bonnet were +very near him as she said this in a low, earnest voice. But in +the next moment the memory of that uncomfortable scene in +the study flashed back upon her, and she felt that she must +always be more or less in a false position with regard to Francis +Tredethlyn. She made a little effort to set herself right before +she parted from him.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“You have seen Julia; you and she are reconciled, I hope. +Mr. Tredethlyn?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“No; indeed, I have never heard from her since—since I left +the Cedars. Your papa told me that she⸺Oh, Miss Hillary, I +think it was better that we should part. I don’t think that we +had either of us ever really cared for each other. It was better +that it should end as it did.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“But I would give so much to find Julia, to hear where +she is.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Francis Tredethlyn shook his head hopelessly. He had a +vague idea that he had not done his very uttermost in his +search for his cousin Susan, and he recoiled with terror from +the idea of having to engage in a hunt for Miss Desmond.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Good-bye, Mr. Tredethlyn; I hope that all will come right, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_150'>150</span>after all; and I hope that you will believe I am grateful for +your goodness to my father.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>She held out her hand, and the Cornishman took it in his +own with almost as reverential a touch as if it had been some +relic handed to him from an altar. The carriage drove off immediately +after this, and Francis saw that seraphic bonnet with +the spring-blossoms melt away and lose itself among mundane +bonnets. He lingered at the rails till the carriage came back +again, and still lingered after that, thinking that Miss Hillary’s +equipage would again return to Hyde-Park Corner; but after +out-watching all the loungers by the rails, and seeing the last +of the carriages leaving the Ladies’ Mile, he was fain to go +home, resigned to the obvious fact that Maude Hillary had left +the Park by the Kensington gates on her homeward route.</p> + +<p class='c008'>He went home, but not disconsolate. Had he not seen and +spoken with that divinity before whom he was the simplest worshipper +who ever bowed before any earthly shrine? Was he not +assured of her forgiveness? nay, even of her gratitude? Her +gratitude—Maude Hillary’s gratitude, in exchange for that vile +dross which he had ever held so lightly. Money was indeed good +for something, if it could buy the rapture of that little interview +across the park-rail, in which Francis had played so very poor a +part. He went home, and carried Maude Hillary’s image with +him, and walked up and down his big sitting-room in the Covent +Garden Hotel, smoking a cigar and thinking of the woman he +loved: he thought of her quite as hopelessly as ever <i>Claude +Melnotte</i> could have thought of <i>Pauline</i> before <i>Beauseant’s</i> +diabolical suggestions had prompted him to his treacherous +wooing. He thought of her as innocently as a schoolboy thinks +of the stage fairy-queen in a Christmas pantomime, and no ambitious +or selfish dream had any abode in his mind; only when +a brief note reached him from Lionel Hillary, renewing the old +unceremonious invitation to the Cedars, poor Francis could no +longer resist the voice of the charmer, but was fain to pack his +portmanteau and drive down to the merchant’s office, whence +Mr. Hillary was to convey him in the mail phaeton to Twickenham. +She was not angry with him, and he might bask in the +sunshine of her presence! For a little while he might enjoy the +dangerous delight, and then the officer to whom she was betrothed +would come back to claim her, and there would be a +wedding at the old church by the Thames; and he, Francis, +would see his divinity radiant in bridal robes and crowned with +orange-flowers before he departed for ever into the outer darkness +where she was not.</p> + +<span class='pageno' id='Page_151'>151</span> + +</div> + +<div class='pbb'> + <hr class='pb c001'> +</div> +<div> + +<div> + <h2 class='c003'><a id='chapter-XIX'></a>CHAPTER XIX.<br> <br><span class='fss'>MR. HILLARY SPEAKS HIS MIND.</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>After that meeting in Hyde Park, Francis Tredethlyn came +very often to the Cedars; so often, as to engender a vague uneasiness +in Miss Hillary’s mind. She knew that he loved her. +If that sudden declaration in the study had never occurred to +reveal the fact, Maude must have been something less than a +woman had she been blind to a devotion that was made manifest +by every look and tone of her adorer. She knew that he loved +her, and that he had done battle with his love in order that she +might be happily ignorant of the pangs that tormented his +simple heart. The highly educated girl was able to read the +innermost secrets of that honest uncultivated mind, and was +fain to pity Francis Tredethlyn’s wasted suffering. Alas! had +she not indeed traded upon his devotion, and obtained her +father’s safety at the expense of her own honour?</p> + +<p class='c008'>Such thoughts as these tormented Miss Hillary perpetually +now that Francis spent so much of his life at Twickenham. +She perceived with inexpressible pain that her father encouraged +the young man’s visits,—her father, who could not surely shut +his eyes to the real state of the Cornishman’s feelings; yet who +knew of her engagement to Harcourt Lowther. She did not +know that Julia Desmond had taken good care to inform Francis +of that engagement, and that the young man came knowingly +to his delicious torture. She did not know this; and all that +womanly compassion which was natural to her, that pitying +tenderness which showed itself in the injudicious relief of barefaced +tramps and vagabonds about the Twickenham lanes, and +the pampering of troublesome pet dogs and canary birds—all +her womanly pity, I say, was aroused by the thought that she +was loved, and loved in vain, by an honest and generous heart.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Thus it came to pass that she could no longer endure the +course which events were taking, and she determined upon +speaking to her father. They had dined alone one bright June +evening: they were not often thus together now, for Mr. Hillary +had fallen into his old habit of bringing visitors from London, +and the ponderous matrons and croquet-playing young ladies +inflicted a good deal of their company upon Maude. They had +dined alone, and Miss Hillary seized the opportunity of speaking +to her father upon that one subject which had so long occupied +her thoughts.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Mr. Tredethlyn comes here very often, papa,” she said, +breaking ground very gently.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Lionel Hillary filled his glass, retiring an it were behind the +<span class='pageno' id='Page_152'>152</span>claret-jug, from which comfortable shelter he replied to his +daughter’s remark,—</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Often?—yes—I suppose he does spend a good deal of his +time here. I am glad that he should do so; he is an excellent +young man, a noble-hearted young fellow—the best friend I +have in the world.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Mr. Hillary was a long time filling that one glass of claret, +and his face was quite hidden by the crystal jug.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Yes, papa, he is very good; but do you think it is quite +right—quite wise to invite him so often?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Right—wise?” cried Mr. Hillary; “what, in the name of +all that’s absurd, can you mean by talking of the right or wisdom +of an invitation to dinner? The young man likes to come +here, and I like the young man, and like to see him here. That +is about all that can be said upon the subject.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Maude was silent for some moments. It was very difficult to +discuss this question with her father, but she had grown familiar +with difficulties within the past few months, and was no longer +the frivolous girl who had known no loftier cause of anxiety +than the uncertain health of her Skye terrier. She returned to +the charge presently.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Dear papa, I am sorry to worry you about this business,” +she said, gently, “but there are such peculiar circumstances in +our acquaintance with Mr. Tredethlyn—we are under so deep +an obligation to him, and⸺”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“And on that account we ought to shut our doors in his +face, I suppose!” exclaimed Mr. Hillary, with some show of +impatience. “My dear Maude, what mare’s-nest have you +lighted upon?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“It is so difficult for me to explain myself, papa: you can +never imagine how difficult. But I think you ought to understand +what I mean. When Julia was here, Mr. Tredethlyn’s +visits were quite natural, and I was always glad to see him; +but it was my application to him for the loan of that money +which resulted in the breaking of Julia’s engagement. I cannot +forget that night, papa; nothing but desperation would +have prompted me to appeal to Francis Tredethlyn; and now +that we are under this great obligation to him, I feel that we +are bound to him by a kind of duty. We have, at least, no +right to deceive him.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Deceive him! Who does deceive him?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Willingly, no one. But he may deceive himself, papa. +You force me to speak very plainly. Upon the night on which +I appealed to him for that loan, he told me that he loved me, +even though he was then engaged to Julia. There was something +in his manner that convinced me of his sincerity, though +I was shocked at the want of honour involved in such a +<span class='pageno' id='Page_153'>153</span>declaration. But now that his engagement to Julia has been +broken off, indirectly through my agency, he may think it +likely that⸺”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“He may think it likely that you would be wise enough to +accept one of the best fellows that ever lived for your husband. +Is that what you mean, Maude?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Papa!”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Oh, my dear, I have no doubt you think me a cruel father, +because I venture to make such a suggestion. But surely, +Maude, you cannot have been blind to this young man’s devotion. +From the very first it has been obvious to anyone gifted +with the smallest power of perception. Julia Desmond contrived, +by her consummate artifice, to inveigle the poor fellow +into a false position; but in spite even of that foolish engagement, +he has been devoted to you, Maude, from the first. I +have seen it, and have counted, Heaven knows how fully, upon +a marriage between you and him.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“You have done this, papa, and yet you knew all about +Harcourt,” exclaimed Maude, reproachfully.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I knew that you were a foolishly sentimental girl, ready to +believe in any yellow-whiskered young Admirable Crichton, +who could make pretty speeches, and criticise the newest Italian +opera, or Tennyson’s last poem. But I knew something more +than this, Maude; I knew the state of my own affairs, and that +my only hope for you lay in a wealthy marriage.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“And you thought that I would marry for money—you +could think so meanly of me, papa!”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I thought that you were a sensible, high-spirited girl, and +that when you came to know the desperation of the case, you +would show yourself of the true metal—as you did that night +at Brighton; as you did when you asked Tredethlyn for the +loan which saved me from ruin.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Lionel Hillary stretched out his hand as he spoke, and +grasped that of his daughter. In the next minute she was by +his side, bending over him and caressing him. Only lately it +had begun to dawn dimly upon Maude Hillary, that perhaps +this father, whom she loved so dearly, was not the noblest and +most honourable of men: but if any such knowledge had come +to her, it had only intensified the tenderness with which, from +her earliest childhood, she had regarded that indulgent father. +The experience of sorrow had transformed and exalted her nature; +and she was able to look upon Lionel Hillary’s weaknesses +with pitying regret, rather than with any feeling of contempt +or indignation.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Dear papa,” she said, very gravely, “you and I love each +other so dearly, that there should be no possibility of any misunderstanding +between us. I can never marry Mr. Tredethlyn; +<span class='pageno' id='Page_154'>154</span>I know that he is good and generous-minded and simple-hearted; +I feel the extent of our obligation to him, but I can +never be his wife. It is for this reason that I am fearful lest +any false impression may arise in his mind. Pray, dear papa, +take this into consideration, and do not let him come here so +often—at any rate, not until you have been able to repay him +his money, not until the burden of this great obligation has +been removed from us.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Lionel Hillary laughed aloud.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Not until the money has been paid! I’m afraid, in that +case, Tredethlyn will stop away from this house for a long time +to come.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“A long time, papa! But you told me you would be able +to repay the twenty thousand pounds,” said Maude, turning +very pale.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“And I dare say I shall be able to pay the money some day. +Such a loan as that is not repaid in a few months, Maude. +How should you understand these matters? The twenty thousand +pounds went to fill a yawning gulf in my business, and it +would be about as easy for me to get the same amount of money +back out of that gulf as it would for a single diver to bring up +the treasures of a sunken argosy.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Maude sighed wearily. It seemed as if a kind of net had +been woven round her, and that she suddenly found herself in +the centre of it, unable to move.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Papa,” she cried, “you don’t mean that Mr. Tredethlyn’s +money is lost?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Lost! No, child; but it may be a very long time before I +shall be able to pay him. If you were not so foolish as to throw +away one of the noblest hearts in Christendom—to say nothing +of the fortune that goes along with it—there would be very +little need for me to worry myself about this money.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Oh, I understand, papa. If I were Mr. Tredethlyn’s wife, +you would not be obliged to pay the twenty thousand pounds,” +said Maude, very slowly.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I should not be tormented about it as I am now. Say no +more, my dear; you don’t understand these things, and you +drive me very nearly mad with your questions about my affairs.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Forgive me, papa. No, I don’t understand—I can’t understand +all at once; it seems so strange to me.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>She bent her head and kissed her father on the forehead, +and then went quietly out of the room; leaving him alone in +the still summer twilight, with a belated wasp buzzing feebly +amongst the fruit and flowers on the table. Maude went to her +own room, and sitting there in the dusk, shed some of the bitterest +tears that had ever fallen from her eyes. The discovery +of her father’s views with regard to her had humiliated her to +<span class='pageno' id='Page_155'>155</span>the very dust. The idea that Francis Tredethlyn’s loan would +never be repaid was torture to her keen sense of honour; torture +which was rendered still more poignant by the recollection +of her own part in the transaction. Would he ever be paid? +Would that money, for the loan of which—and never more than +the loan—she had supplicated her friend’s betrothed husband, +would that money ever be returned to the generous young man +who had so freely lent it? Her father had said that it would +in due course; but there was something in his manner that had +neutralized the effect of his words. To Maude Hillary’s mind +this debt was a very sacred one, a debt which <em>must</em> be repaid, +and for which she herself was responsible. Twenty thousand +pounds;—all the faculties of her brain seemed to swim in a +great sea of confusion as she thought of that terrible sum—twenty +thousand pounds, which she was bound to see duly +paid; and she was no longer an heiress, to whom money was +dross. She was a penniless, helpless girl: worse off than other +penniless girls by reason of her inexperience of poverty.</p> + +<p class='c008'>She thought of Harcourt Lowther; and his image seemed to +shine upon her across a wilderness of troubles; a bright and +pleasant thing to look at, but with no promise of help, no inspiration +of hope, no pledge of comfort in its brightness.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Perhaps papa is right, after all,” she thought, “and Harcourt +would scarcely care to burden himself with a penniless +wife.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>She was ashamed of this brief treason against her lover, +almost as soon as the thought had shaped itself; only in her +despair it seemed to her as if there could be no security of any +happiness upon this earth.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I will tell Francis Tredethlyn the truth about myself,” she +thought; “he shall not be deceived as to anything in which I +am concerned. He shall know of my engagement to Harcourt.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Maude did not go downstairs again that night, nor did Mr. +Hillary send for her, as it was his wont to do when she was long +away from him. It may be that he scarcely cared to encounter +his daughter after that conversation in the dining-room, which +had been far from pleasant to him. He was not a father of +Mr. Capulet’s class, who could order his daughter to marry the +County Paris at a few days’ notice; or in the event of her +refusal, bid her rot in the streets of Verona. But from the very +first he had been bent upon bringing about a union between +Francis and Maude, and he brooded moodily over the girl’s resolute +rejection of any such alliance.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“What would become of her if I were to die to-morrow?” +he thought; “and what is to become of my business if I fail to +secure a rich partner?”</p> + +<span class='pageno' id='Page_156'>156</span> + +</div> + +<div class='pbb'> + <hr class='pb c001'> +</div> +<div> + +<div> + <h2 class='c003'><a id='chapter-XX'></a>CHAPTER XX.<br> <br><span class='fss'>AN EXPLANATION.</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>Francis Tredethlyn, now so frequent a visitor at the Cedars, +happened to present himself there upon the day after that on +which Maude had come to an understanding with her father. +The young man rode down to Twickenham in the afternoon, +and found Miss Hillary occupied with two croquet-playing +young ladies and a croquet-playing young gentleman, whose +manners and opinions were of the same insipidly flaxen hue as +their hair and eyebrows.</p> + +<p class='c008'>There was a tired look in Maude’s face that afternoon, which +was very perceptible to Francis Tredethlyn, although quite +invisible to the neutral-tinted croquet-players. Her eyes wandered +away sometimes from the balls and mallets, and fixed +themselves, with a sad, dreamy look, upon the sunlit river or +the distant woodland. Francis saw this, and that faithful +Cornish heart grew heavy in sympathy with Miss Hillary’s unknown +trouble. There must be a little of the Newfoundland +dog in the nature of a man who can love hopelessly; a little of +that superhuman fidelity, a little of that canine endurance which +has inspired so many odious comparisons to the disparagement +of the inferior animal called man. Francis Tredethlyn’s eyes +followed Miss Hillary with a dog-like patience all this afternoon, +during which he established himself in the estimation of the +flaxen-haired droppers-in as one of the vilest of croquet-players +and worst-mannered of men. But the croquet-players departed, +after taking tea out of a very ugly Queen-Anne teapot and some +old Sèvres cups and saucers, which had been bought for Miss +Hillary at the sale of a defunct collector’s goods and chattels, +at Messrs. Christie and Manson’s. Francis stayed to dinner, +and dined alone with Maude and her father, and found very +little to say for himself. He was distracted by the sight of +Maude’s pale face and sadly thoughtful eyes. How changed +she was from the bright and sparkling creature whom he remembered +a few months ago in that house! How changed! +What was the secret trouble which had worked that transformation? +What could it be except Miss Hillary’s sorrow for +the circumstances that divided her from her distant lover? +There could be no other cause for her unhappiness, since her +father’s commercial difficulties had been smoothed by that +twenty thousand pounds so freely advanced to him; and it never +occurred to Francis that Maude Hillary could possibly give +herself any uneasiness about that money, so lightly parted with +by him; nor could he think that any new trouble threatened +<span class='pageno' id='Page_157'>157</span>the merchant’s peace, for Mr. Hillary was specially gay and +pleasant this evening.</p> + +<p class='c008'>After dinner Maude strolled out into the garden, and down +to that delicious terrace by the river, where the big stone vases +of geraniums looked dark and grim in the twilight. She walked +slowly up and down the long esplanade with a filmy lace handkerchief +tied coquettishly over her head, and her long muslin +dress sweeping and rustling after her like the draperies of a fashionably-attired +ghost. Francis Tredethlyn furtively watched +that white-robed figure in the shadowy distance as he sat at the +dinner-table with Mr. Hillary, and would fain have left his glass, +filled with the merchant’s rarest Burgundy, for a stroll by the +quiet river. Perhaps Mr. Hillary perceived this, for he presently +gave the young man his release.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Since you don’t drink your wine, you may as well go for a +stroll in the garden, Tredethlyn,” he said, good-naturedly. “I +see Maude yonder; and she’ll be better company for you than +I am.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Francis was by no means slow to take this hint. But once +outside the dining-room windows, he went very slowly to the +terrace on which Maude was walking. He walked in and out +among the flower-beds, making a faint pretence of admiring +nature in this twilight aspect. He stopped to caress one of +Maude’s Skye terriers. The animals were very fond of him +now that he had learned to avoid that trampling on their toes +which had been one of the earlier manifestations of his devotion +to Miss Hillary. He loitered here and there on every possible +pretext, and at last approached the fair deity in the muslin +dress with very much the air of a schoolboy, who presents +himself in that awful audience-chamber wherein a grim pedagogue +is wont to pronounce terrible judgments upon youthful +offenders.</p> + +<p class='c008'>He did not know that Miss Hillary had been expecting him +all this time; and that her special purpose was to bring him to +her side upon that solitary terrace-walk, where she could talk to +him freely without fear of eavesdroppers. He did not know +that he was quite as much expected as the schoolboy who has +been summoned to the parlour, and was to receive a sentence as +terrible.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Maude welcomed him very graciously, and for a little while +they strolled side by side, talking of the summer’s night, and the +flowers, and Skye terriers, and canary-birds, and other subjects +equally commonplace and harmless. Then they came to a stop, +mechanically, as it is in the nature of people to do when they +walk by the side of a river, and looked over the stone balustrade +into the still water. And then a death-like silence came down +upon them; and Maude Hillary felt that the time had come +<span class='pageno' id='Page_158'>158</span>in which she must utter whatever she had it in her mind to +say. It was difficult to begin; but then all her duties of late +had been difficult; and upon her knees the night before, in the +midst of tearful prayers and meditations, she had resolved that +there should be no more sailing under false colours as regarded +this young man.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Dear Mr. Tredethlyn,” she began at last, “you have been +so good to my father, so good to me—for to serve him is to render +a double service to me—you have been so kind and generous +a friend, that I have grown to think of you and trust you almost +as I might if you had been my brother.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Poor Francis listened to this exordium with a very despondent +air. Inexperienced as he was in the ways of the world, he was +wise enough to know that there was nothing hopeful in such an +address as this. When a young lady tells a gentleman that she +can regard him as a brother, it is the plainest possible declaration +that he can never be anything else. In this case it seemed +an uncalled-for act of cruelty, for the Cornishman had never +deluded himself by any false hope.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I think of you almost as if you were my brother,” Maude +went on, with heartless repetition of the obnoxious word; “and +I cannot help thinking, dear Mr. Tredethlyn, that you are +scarcely employing your life as wisely or as well as you might. +I don’t think you were ever intended to be an idle man; and +again, with such a fortune as yours, a man has scarcely the +right to be idle. There are so many people who may be benefited +by a rich man’s active life. Oh, forgive me if I seem to lecture +you. You will laugh at me, perhaps, and think I want to set +myself up as a strong-minded woman, a political economist, or +something of that kind. But I only venture to speak to you +because I think you waste so much of your time down here, playing +billiards with the empty-headed young men who haunt this +place, and lounging in the drawing-room to hear the frivolous +talk of half-a-dozen idle women, myself among the number.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>She spoke lightly, but she was not the less earnest in her intention; +she was only travelling gradually round to the point +she wanted to reach.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“But I am so happy here,” cried Francis Tredethlyn. “Ah, +if you knew how I have tried to stop away—if you could only +know what happiness it is to me to come⸺”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Maude Hillary interrupted him hastily.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Yes, I know it is a pleasant life in its way,” she said; “very +pleasant and very useless. It is a little new to you perhaps, and +seems pleasanter to you on that account. But if you knew +what dreary work it is to look back at a long summer season of +operas, and concerts, and horticultural meetings, and boat-races, +and not to be able to remember one action worthy of being recorded +<span class='pageno' id='Page_159'>159</span>in all that time! I am getting very tired of my present +life, Mr. Tredethlyn. It has ceased to be pleasant to me ever +since I have known of papa’s difficulties. It is altogether unsuited +to me; for I am engaged to marry a poor man, who +would bitterly feel the burden of an expensive wife.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>The bolt was launched, and Miss Hillary expected to see some +evidence that it had gone home to its mark. But Francis Tredethlyn +made no sign. There was just a little pause, and then +he said very quietly,—</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Yes, I know that you are to marry a poor man; but with +such a wife a man could scarcely remain poor. I suppose it’s +only an ignorant foolish notion, but I can’t help thinking that +for the sake of the woman he loves, any man could cut his way +to fortune. I can always believe in those knights of the olden +time, who used to put a badge in their helmets, and then ride +off to the wars to do all sorts of miraculous things; and I fancy +it must be the same now-a-days, somehow; and that a man who +loves truly, and is truly loved again, can achieve anything.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Maude was inexpressibly relieved by this speech.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“You know of my engagement, then?” she said.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Yes, I have known it for a very long time.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Ah, of course, Julia told you?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Yes, it was Miss Desmond who told me.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“She had a perfect right to do so; there was no reason for +any secrecy in the matter. I am very glad that you have known +of it. You are so kind a friend that I should not like you to be +ignorant of anything nearly relating to my father or myself.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“It is very good of you to call me a friend,” Francis answered. +It seemed to him as if some angelic creature was stooping from +her own proper sphere to place herself for a brief interval by his +side. “It is very good of you to take any interest in my welfare; +and I feel that you are right. The life I lead is utterly +idle and useless; but it shall be so no longer. Your father has +very generously offered me a grand opportunity of turning both +my time and money to account.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“My father? But how?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“He has offered me a partnership in his own house.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“A partnership?—a partnership in his difficulties—his liabilities?” +cried Maude, in a tone of horror.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Those difficulties were only temporary. The thirty thousand +I advanced have wiped out all liabilities, and your father’s business +stands on a firmer basis than ever.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“<em>Thirty</em> thousand! You have lent papa thirty thousand pounds?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I have not lent it, my dear Miss Hillary. I have only invested +it in your father’s business. There is no obligation in +the matter, believe me; or if there is, it is all on my side. I get +<span class='pageno' id='Page_160'>160</span>a higher rate of interest for my money than I should get elsewhere.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>He stopped suddenly, for Maude had burst into a passion of +sobs.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Oh, how could he do it? How could he?” she cried. “How +could papa take so mean an advantage of your generosity? I +love him so dearly, that it almost kills me to think he should be +base or dishonourable. I thought the twenty thousand pounds +would soon be paid, and instead of that he has borrowed more +money of you.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“My dear Miss Hillary, pray, pray do not distress yourself. +Believe me you misunderstand this business altogether. It is +not a loan. It is only an equitable and friendly arrangement, +quite as advantageous to me as to your father. Upon my word +of honour you do Mr. Hillary a cruel wrong when you imagine +otherwise.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Maude dried her tears, and listened to the voice of her consoler. +She was so anxious to think well of her father, that she +must have been something more than an ignorant, inexperienced +girl, if she shut her ears to Francis Tredethlyn’s arguments.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Those arguments were very convincing, very specious. Maude +ought, perhaps, to have perceived that they were not the original +ideas of Mr. Tredethlyn. She ought, perhaps, to have discovered +the parrot-like nature of his discourse respecting all the grand +prospects of the house of Hillary and Co.; but she wanted to +think well of her father, and Francis Tredethlyn urged her to +that conclusion. She listened to his discourse as eagerly as if +he had been the most eloquent of living creatures. She felt a +kind of tender friendship for him as he talked to her; never +before had he seemed so nearly on a level with herself. She +wanted to believe in his wisdom; she wanted to respect his sense +and judgment, because he was the defender of her father—that +beloved father against whom her own conscience had so lately +arisen, a stern and pitiless judge.</p> + +<p class='c008'>The quiet river rippled under the summer moonlight before +Maude and her companion left the terrace; so much had Francis +found to say about the house of Hillary and Co., and the wonderful +advantages that must come to him from a partnership in +that great firm. Surely his enthusiasm must have arisen from +some vague idea that even that commercial alliance would be +some kind of link between Miss Hillary and himself. He talked +very freely to-night, for Maude’s confidence had set him at his +ease; and in almost every word he uttered he naïvely revealed +some new depth in his devoted love.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Late that night, when the Cornishman had gone away, Maude +stood at her open window, looking out at the river, and thinking +of all that Francis Tredethlyn had said to her.</p> + +<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_161'>161</span>“Harcourt Lowther never loved me as this man loves me,” +she thought, sadly. “Ah, what a pity that there should be so +much wasted love and devotion in the world!”</p> + +<p class='c008'>And then the thought of Francis Tredethlyn’s thirty thousand +pounds arose in her mind,—a terrible obligation, a heavy +burden of debt; a debt that was perhaps never to be cancelled.</p> + +</div> + +<div class='pbb'> + <hr class='pb c001'> +</div> +<div> + +<div> + <h2 class='c003'><a id='chapter-XXI'></a>CHAPTER XXI.<br> <br><span class='fss'>HARCOURT LOWTHER’S WELCOME.</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>Within a month from that night on which the merchant’s +daughter and Francis Tredethlyn had lingered so long together +on the terrace up the river, Maude Hillary sat at her desk in +the little study, trying to begin the most difficult letter she had +ever had occasion to write.</p> + +<p class='c008'>The letter was to be addressed to Harcourt Lowther, and the +three words, “My dear Harcourt,” were already written on the +rose-tinted foreign note-paper; but beyond those preliminary +words Maude found it very difficult to proceed.</p> + +<p class='c008'>That which she had to tell the distant soldier, sorely tried by +inglorious idleness in a penal settlement, and inclined to resent +every stroke of ill-fortune, was by no means a pleasant thing to +tell. She had to announce to him that the promise she had +made long ago in the twilight by the river had been deliberately +broken. She had to tell him that she was the plighted wife of +another man; and she was not free to reveal to him any one of +the strange circumstances that had pressed so cruelly upon her, +pushing her, little by little, into this renunciation of her first and +only love.</p> + +<p class='c008'>It was only a very commonplace letter that Miss Hillary +could write to her discarded lover. She could only tell the old, +common story, and put in the hackneyed pleas so often heard in +the court of Cupid;—her father’s wishes: her desire to secure +his happiness rather than her own; and then a wild womanly +prayer for pity: an entreaty that her lover would believe in the +existence of stronger reasons—higher motives—the nature of +which she was not free to reveal. And last of all, after many +pages of passionate supplication for pardon, with not a little +violation of the nicer laws propounded by Lindley Murray and +his successors,—at the very last there came one page blotted +with tears, earnest yet incoherent, in which Miss Hillary implored +Mr. Lowther to forget her, and to seek happiness with a +happier woman. Never had she loved him so dearly as while +<span class='pageno' id='Page_162'>162</span>she wrote that last page, in which she resigned him for ever. +Surely Queen Guinevere’s diamonds must have sparkled their +very brightest just in that one angry moment in which she +flung them into the river.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Yes, it had come to this. Maude Hillary, like a modern +Iphigenia, had sacrificed herself for the benefit of her father. +The burden of that debt which had been incurred by her agency +had weighed too heavily upon her girlish breast. Somehow or +other Francis Tredethlyn must be paid; and since he loved her +so devotedly, so foolishly—since he held her as the brightest +treasure to be won by aspiring man—it was surely better that +he should take this poor recompense than go altogether unrewarded. +It may be that Maude Hillary would under no circumstances +deliberately have broken faith with her betrothed lover. +But these grand crises, upon which the fate of a lifetime may +depend, are apt to come very suddenly upon us. The great flood-tide +of fate arises, and carries away the weak creatures afloat +on its resistless waters. A moment of hesitation—a few faltering +words—half doubtful, half imploring, and the thing is done.</p> + +<p class='c008'>It had all happened on the day on which Francis Tredethlyn +accepted Mr. Hillary’s magnanimous offer, and allowed himself +to be created a sleeping partner in the Australian house. It +was only natural that on such a day Francis should dine at the +Cedars; and it was only natural that Lionel Hillary should +make a little speech about the young man, telling his daughter +of the generosity of this noble-minded Cornishman, who had +been something more than a son to him—a friend, a benefactor, +a preserver. What praise could be loud enough for a man who +would lend thirty thousand pounds without security? And +then this noble-minded Cornishman, whose heart was like a great +lump of tinder—only wanting the feeblest spark to kindle it +into a blaze—burst out into a passionate declaration of his love. +What was his fortune but so much dirt, which he was only too +glad to fling under the feet of Miss Hillary? Would he not go +out into the world to-morrow penniless, barefoot, a beggar, if +by so doing he could add to her happiness? He asked a few +such questions as these: and then cried out suddenly that he +was a despicable wretch, and that he was ashamed of himself +for saying all this, when he knew that Miss Hillary’s heart was +given to another man. He would go, he said; she should never +again be tormented by him. She should not be annoyed by so +much as the mention of his name. After which passionate +speech Mr. Tredethlyn grasped the merchants hand, and then +made a rush towards the door. He would fain have suited the +action to the word; he wanted to go away that moment, and +hide himself for ever from Maude Hillary. But before he could +reach the door Maude was by his side, with her hands clasped +<span class='pageno' id='Page_163'>163</span>about his arm her face looking upward at his, and drowned +with tears.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“How good you are!” she cried. “Don’t go away; we +cannot part from you like this. You have been so good to my +father. Ah, how can we ever recompense so much devotion! +If my esteem—my gratitude—can make you happy, they are +yours,—they have long been yours. I renounce every other +thought, every other duty. I can have no duty higher than +this.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>The last words were almost stifled on her lips, for Francis +Tredethlyn caught her to his breast as passionately as in that +last scene of the “Lady of Lyons.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Maude, my love—my angel—you will renounce, for my +sake—you—you—will be my own—my wife!” he gasped, incoherently. +“No—no, I cannot accept such a sacrifice—I am +not so mean, so selfish, as to⸺”</p> + +<p class='c008'>But Mr. Hillary, hovering over his daughter and the generous-minded +young Cornishman, would not allow Francis to finish +this sentence.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“My dear boy!” he exclaimed,—“my darling Maude! nothing +upon earth could give me greater pleasure than this, +because I know that it is for your mutual happiness. What +joy can be deeper or purer than that of a father who knows +that his child has won for herself the devoted affection of a +good man?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“And the thirty thousand pounds will be sunk for ever and +ever in the firm of Hillary and Co.,” the merchant may have +thought at the close of that enthusiastic address.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Thus it was that Maude Hillary arrived at the very point +towards which fate and her father had been pushing her for the +last twelve months. After that passionate impulse of self-sacrifice +had passed away, a dull dead feeling of pain took possession +of her breast. Alone in the quiet of her own pretty +rooms; alone through the long sunny July mornings with her +books, and Berlin-wool work, and piano, she had only too much +time to consider the step she had taken; she had only too much +time to think of her broken vows, her scattered hopes. And +she did think of these things,—with cruel remorse and self-upbraiding, +with bitter and unavailing regret.</p> + +<p class='c008'>And now Francis Tredethlyn appeared to her all at once in +a new light. Alas! he was no longer the noble-hearted friend +to whom she could appeal for help in the day of trouble. He +was no longer the humble adorer, kneeling on the lowest step of +the altar, remote and submissive. He was her affianced husband, +and he had a right to her society. He had a right to +attend her in her walks and rides, to linger near the piano when +<span class='pageno' id='Page_164'>164</span>she sang, to hold perpetual skeins of Berlin-wool during those +tedious morning visits which he made now and again to the +Cedars. All these privileges were his by right; and other +people gave place when he approached Miss Hillary, and +watched to see her face brighten as he drew near her. It was +not that Francis himself was in any way altered. His adoration +of his bright divinity was no less humble than of old—even +now when he knew that the goddess was to descend from her +pedestal and exchange her starry crown for the orange-blossoms +of an earthly bride. He was in no way changed; the distance +between himself and Maude Hillary was as wide as ever. He +could set it before him—a palpable gulf, across which he beheld +her, a strange creature, in a strange land,—a creature who +might hold out her hand to him once in a way across the impassable +abyss, but who could never draw him near her. Alas for +Francis Tredethlyn’s loveless betrothal! that dreary distance +was growing wider every day, now that Iphigenia knew the +hour of sacrifice was drawing near.</p> + +<p class='c008'>It had been one thing to think of Mr. Tredethlyn as a friend—a +dear and devoted friend, worthy to be regarded with an almost +sisterly affection. It was another thing to contemplate him as +a future husband. All his ignorance, his homely ways of speaking +and thinking, his little awkwardnesses and stupidities, his +vacillating temperament in the matter of spoons and forks at +those elaborate Russian dinners,—all these things pained Maude +Hillary now as cruelly as they had galled Miss Desmond’s proud +spirit some six months before. And then to the faint shivering +pain of disgust was joined all the bitterness of contrast. Never +had Harcourt Lowther’s image seemed so near to this wayward +girl as it seemed now, when she was the promised wife of another +man, and tried most honestly to shut the memory of her old +lover completely out of her mind. Never had he been so near to +her. His graces of manner, his accomplishments, the light touch +of his pointed fingers on the piano, the deep organ-tone that he +alone amongst amateurs could draw out of a flute, the free outlines +of his pencil, the transparency of his water-colour sketches, +the graphic humour of his pen-and-ink caricatures; the airy wit, +which never verged upon vulgarity; the fervid eloquence, which +never degenerated into rant; the trenchant satire, which never +sank to the vile level of personal spite: she thought of her discarded +lover: and all the showy attributes that had won her +girlish love arose before her in cruel contrast with the deficiencies +of Francis Tredethlyn.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Yet all this time she was very kind to her betrothed husband. +It was not in her to be scornfully indifferent to the man whom +she regarded as her father’s friend and benefactor. She was not +a woman to sacrifice herself with an ill grace. The silent warfare +<span class='pageno' id='Page_165'>165</span>went on within her breast. She struggled and suffered, but +she had always the same kind, cold smile, the same gentle words +for the man whom she had promised to marry.</p> + +<p class='c008'>And in the meantime the hands went steadily round upon all +the clock-dials, and the inevitable hour drew very near. Busy +milliners and dressmakers, bootmakers and outfitters, came backwards +and forwards from Wigmore Street to the Cedars, and were +busy and glad. Mr. Hillary’s credit was unlimited, and it was +almost as if a princess of the blood royal had been about to marry. +Francis Tredethlyn bought the lease of a big black-looking house +in a new neighbourhood near Hyde Park: and there were negotiations +pending for the purchase of an estate within a few miles +of Windsor.</p> + +<p class='c008'>August was melting into September. Already there were +bright glimpses of red and yellow here and there among the +sombre green of the woodlands. The wedding was to take place +very early in October: the guests were bidden, the dresses of +the bridesmaids were chosen, and in the still evening Iphigenia +walked alone on the terrace. She was very seldom alone at this +hour; but to-night her father had taken Francis Tredethlyn to +a club-dinner, given by a bachelor stockbroker of some eminence +in Mr. Hillary’s circle. To-night Maude was alone; and leaning +upon the broad balustrade, with her elbow resting amongst the +thick ivy that crept along the stone, she looked down at the still +water—the dark melancholy water—and thought of her past +life.</p> + +<p class='c008'>It seemed so far away from her now, left so entirely behind—all +that frivolous past. She seemed to have grown out of herself +since the knowledge of her father’s troubles had come upon her; +and looking backwards she saw a careless and happy creature, +who bore no relationship to this thoughtful woman, before whom +all the future seemed a blank and dreary country, unillumined +by one glimpse of sunshine.</p> + +<p class='c008'>She turned away from the water presently, and walked slowly +up and down the long terrace. There seemed to be a melancholy +influence in the evening stillness, the dusky shadow lying upon +every object, the distant peal of bells floating across the river +from some church where the ringers were practising; even the +voices of passing boatmen and the low monotonous splash of +oars took a pensive tone, in unison with the hour and Maude +Hillary’s sad remorseful thoughts.</p> + +<p class='c008'>She was near the end of the terrace, close to that ivy-grown +old summerhouse which had sheltered the patched and powdered +beauties of King George the Second’s Court, when she was +startled by the sound of a chain grating against stone-work, and +rapid steps on the flight of stairs leading from the terrace to the +river. The young men who came to the Cedars were very fond +<span class='pageno' id='Page_166'>166</span>of making the journey by water: so there was nothing strange +in the sound of a step on the river stair. Maude turned to meet +the intruder with a sense of weariness and vexation. He would +not be likely to stay long, whoever he was; but the prospect of +even ten minutes’ idle conventional discourse jarred upon her +present frame of mind.</p> + +<p class='c008'>She turned to meet the unwelcome visitor with a languid +sigh, and saw a man hurrying towards her in the twilight; a +man in whose figure and dress there was a careless grace, an +undefinable air of distinction, which, in Maude Hillary’s eyes, +stamped him as different from all the rest of the world.</p> + +<p class='c008'>He came hurrying towards her. In a moment he was close to +her, holding out his arms, eager to take her to his breast. But +she recoiled from him, deadly white, and with her hands extended, +motioning him back.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Don’t touch me,” she cried; “don’t come near me. Ah, you +don’t know—you cannot have had my letter.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“What letter?” cried Mr. Lowther, staring almost fiercely at +the shrinking girl. These sort of things so rapidly make themselves +understood. Harcourt Lowther saw at once that something +was wrong. “What letter?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“My last; the letter in which I told you that⸺Ah, how +you will hate and despise me! But if you could know all, +Harcourt, as you never can, you might excuse—you might +forgive⸺”</p> + +<p class='c008'>A torrent of sobs broke the sentence.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Oh, I think I understand,” said Harcourt Lowther, very +quietly. “You have thrown me over, Miss Hillary.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>She held out her clasped hands towards him with an imploring +gesture; and then in broken sentences, in half-finished phrases, +that were rendered incoherent by her sobs, she recapitulated +something of her letter of explanation. Mr. Lowther’s face had +blanched before this, and his lower lip quivered now and then +with a little spasmodic action; but he listened very quietly to +all Maude had to say.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I ought never to have expected anything else,” he answered, +when she had finished her piteous attempt to explain and justify +her conduct without revealing her father’s commercial secrets. +“I don’t know that I ever <em>did</em> expect anything else,” he went on +very deliberately. “What has a penniless younger son to do +among the children of Mammon? How can the earthen pot hope +to sail down the stream with the big brazen vessels, and escape +wreck and ruin? Don’t let there be any scene between us, Miss +Hillary; I hate all domestic tragedy, and I think if my heart +were breaking—and men’s hearts <em>have</em> been known to break—I +could take things quietly. You have grown tired of our long +and apparently hopeless engagement, and you have promised to +<span class='pageno' id='Page_167'>167</span>marry somebody else. It is all perfectly natural. May I know +the name of my fortunate rival?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“His name is Tredethlyn—Francis Tredethlyn.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“A Cornishman,” added Harcourt Lowther,—“a fellow who +has lately come into a great fortune?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Yes. You know him, then?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Intimately. I congratulate you on your choice, Miss Hillary. +Francis Tredethlyn is a most excellent fellow. I have reason to +speak well of him, for he was my servant for a year and a half +out yonder in Van Diemen’s Land.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Your servant?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Yes. He was really the best of fellows; and in the art of +brushing a coat or cleaning a pair of riding-boots was positively +unrivalled.”</p> + +</div> + +<div class='pbb'> + <hr class='pb c001'> +</div> +<div> + +<div> + <h2 class='c003'><a id='chapter-XXII'></a>CHAPTER XXII.<br> <br><span class='fss'>TAKING IT QUIETLY.</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>“If you could know all, Harcourt, as you never can, you might +excuse—you might forgive⸺”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Harcourt Lowther, very quick of apprehension always, especially +so where his own interests were concerned, had taken +careful note of these broken sentences uttered by Maude Hillary, +and, rowing Londonwards in the summer darkness, pondered on +them long and deliberately, only arousing himself now and then +from his sombre reverie, in order to express his profound contempt +for some amateur waterman who was just saved from a +foul by the superior skill of the young officer.</p> + +<p class='c008'>What did it mean? That was the question which Mr. +Lowther set himself to answer.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“It means something more than the caprice of a shallow-hearted +jilt,” he thought, as he rested on his oars and lighted +his cigar. “How pale she grew at sight of me! That white, +agonized look in her face was real despair. ‘If I could know +all!’ she said. All <em>what</em>? There’s a mystery somewhere. +Maude Hillary is the last woman in the world to throw over a +poor lover for the sake of a rich one. The sentimental girl, who +was ready to keep her engagement with me at the sacrifice of +her father’s fortune, would scarcely marry a clownish rustic for +the sake of his thirty thousand a year. Besides, these heiresses, +who have never known what it is to have a wish denied them, +are the most romantic creatures in creation, and cherish sublimely +absurd ideas upon the sordid dross question. No, I cannot +think that Maude would be influenced by any mercenary +considerations—and yet how else⸺?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>The villas and villages on the river-banks flitted past him +<span class='pageno' id='Page_168'>168</span>like phantom habitations in the dim light. The flat shores of +Battersea; the dingy roofs and chimneys of crowded Chelsea +and manufacturing Lambeth; the bridges and barges; the low-lying +prison, lurking like some crouching beast upon the swampy +ground, shifted by as the oars dipped in the quiet water, while +Harcourt Lowther’s light wherry sped homeward with the tide. +But all the length of his water-journey he could find no satisfactory +answer to that question about Maude Hillary; and when +he relinquished his boat to its rightful owner at a certain landing-place +in Westminster, he was still undecided as to the meaning +of those broken phrases which had dropped from the lips of the +merchant’s daughter in the first moment of surprise and emotion.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I dare say it is only the old story after all,” he thought, as +he walked towards the Strand, in the purlieus of which he had +taken up his quarters. “Lionel Hillary, being as rich as Crœsus, +is determined that no poor man shall profit by his daughter’s +fortune. Water runs to the river, and Maude’s dowry will go to +swell that old Cornish miser’s savings. It’s only my usual luck. +I am engaged to a beautiful woman with a hundred thousand +or so for a fortune, and I find a victorious rival in the man who +cleans my boots.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>But Mr. Lowther had not settled the question even yet. +Lying awake and feverishly restless in his lodging in Norfolk +Street, Miss Hillary’s pale face was still before him, the sound +of her imploring tones was perpetually in his ear.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“‘If I knew all, I might forgive, I might excuse!’ There +must have been some meaning in those words, some secret involved +in them. Surely, if her father had forced this marriage +upon her, after the manner of some tyrannical old parent in a +stage-play,—surely, if that had been the case, she would have +candidly told me the truth; she would have pleaded the best +excuse a woman can have. There must be some secret reason +for this marriage, and I must be a consummate fool if I fail in +getting to the bottom of the mystery.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Mr. Lowther breakfasted early the next morning, and dressed +himself with his accustomed neatness before going out. He had +no body-servant now whom he could badger and worry when the +world went ill with him; or that individual would most assuredly +have paid the penalty of Miss Hillary’s broken faith. Harcourt +Lowther, the younger son, was too poor to keep or pay a valet. +He had grown weary of waiting for promotion in the army, as +he had sickened of hoping for advancement at the bar, and had +sold his commission. The world was all before him now, as it +had been seven years ago, when he had first looked about him +for a profession. The world was all before him, and his one +chance of fortune, the possibility of a marriage with Maude +Hillary, seemed entirely lost to him. It was scarcely strange if +<span class='pageno' id='Page_169'>169</span>his spirits sank before the dismal blankness of the prospect +which he contemplated that morning, as he loitered over his +breakfast of London eggs and lodging-house toast and coffee.</p> + +<p class='c008'>He went out a little after twelve o’clock, hailed the first +prowling hansom he encountered in the Strand, and ordered the +man to drive to a certain street in the City, sacred to the stockbroking +and money-making interests. Here he alighted, dismissed +the cab, turned into a narrow court, still more entirely +sacred to stockbroking, and entered a little office, where there +was a desk, two or three horsehair chairs, a great many bills +hanging against the wall, all relating to the stockbroking interests, +and a six-foot screen of wooden panelling, dividing the +small outer office from a larger inner office.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Mr. Lowther walked straight to this screen, and standing on +tip-toe, looked over into the second office.</p> + +<p class='c008'>A gentleman with sandy whiskers, a light overcoat, and a +white hat, was standing at a desk, and jotting some pencil +memoranda upon the margins of a file of documents, which he +was turning over with a certain rapidity and precision of touch +peculiar to a man of business.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Can you spare a quarter of an hour of your valuable time +from the calculation of last year’s prices for the Fiji Island +Grand Junction Stock in order to devote it to the claims of +friendship?” asked Mr. Lowther.</p> + +<p class='c008'>The clerks smiled as they looked up from their desks; and the +gentleman in the white hat dropped his pencil, and ran to a +little wooden door in the partition, over which Harcourt Lowther’s +hat made itself visible.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“My dear Lowther!” he exclaimed, presenting himself in +the smaller office, and stretching out both his hands towards the +intruder; “this <em>is</em> a surprise; I thought you were at the Antipodes.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Yes, that’s the way of the world,” answered Mr. Lowther, +rather peevishly; “a man is banished to some outlandish hole +at the remotest end of the universe, <span lang="la"><i>ergo</i></span> he’s never to return +to the civilized half of the globe.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“But it seems only yesterday when⸺”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“And that’s another cruel thing a man’s friends say to him +when he does turn up in the civilized hemisphere,” interrupted +Mr. Lowther. “‘It seems only yesterday when you left us;’ +that is to say, life has been so pleasant and rapid for us, <a id='tn-gaieties'></a>amidst +all the gaieties and luxuries and successes of the most wonderful +city in the world, that we are utterly unable to believe in the +dreary months and years that you’ve had to drag out, poor +devil, in your hole on the other side of the line. That’s what a +fellow’s friends <em>mean</em> when they talk their confounded humbug +about it’s only seeming yesterday.”</p> + +<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_170'>170</span>Harcourt Lowther’s City friend was not the most brilliant or +original of men when you took him away from the stockbroking +interests. He stared blankly during Mr. Lowther’s discontented +remarks upon the selfishness of mankind.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Haw! that’s good. Meant no offence by allusion to yesterday; +only meant that I was jolly glad to see you, you know, +and so on. But, you see, a fellow turning up in the City when +you’ve been given to understand that he’s in Van Diemen’s +Land is rather a surprise, you know. Can I do anything for +you? I’ll tell you what, old fellow; I can put you up to a +good thing in the Etruscan Loan,—panic prices,—nine percent, +and certain to turn up trumps in the long run.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Mr. Lowther smiled bitterly.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Do you suppose that I’ve any money to invest; or that if I +had money, I’m the sort of man to sink the glorious principal +for the sake of some miserable dribblings in the way of interest? +No, my dear Wilderson, you <em>can</em> do me a good turn, but it’s +in quite another direction. Just step this way.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>He put his hand on his friend’s shoulder, and led him to the +door leading into the court. Here, safely out of the hearing of +the clerks at work in the inner office, Mr. Lowther lowered his +voice to a confidential tone.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Wilderson,” he said, “I think you know Lionel Hillary, +the Australian merchant?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Hillary and Co.?” exclaimed Mr. Wilderson,—“I should +flatter myself I did.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I want you to tell me all about him—how he stands—how +he has stood for some time past; in short, all you know +about him.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>The stockbroker pulled his hay-coloured whiskers thoughtfully, +and shook his head.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“These sort of things are rather difficult to <em>know</em>,” he said, +“but a man may have his thoughts about ’em.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“And what are your thoughts? Hang it, man, speak out. +You talked just now of being ready to serve me. You can +serve me in this matter, if you choose.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Mr. Wilderson shrugged his shoulders, and again pulled his +whiskers in a reflective mood.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Dear boy,” he said presently, “come out into the court.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Evidently in Mr. Wilderson’s mind the court was as some +primeval forest, wherein no listener’s ears could penetrate.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Out in the court the stockbroker hitched his arm through +that of Harcourt Lowther, and began to discourse upon Lionel +Hillary, or Hillary and Co., as Mr. Wilderson preferred to designate +him. He said a great deal in a low, confidential voice, +and Harcourt Lowther’s lower jaw fell a little as he listened. +One thing was made clear to the ex-officer, and that was, that +<span class='pageno' id='Page_171'>171</span>Lionel Hillary’s affairs had been hinted at by the knowing ones +as rather shaky; that there had been even whispers of that +awful word, “suspension:” but that somehow or other Hillary +and Co. had contrived to right themselves; and that it was +supposed by the aforesaid knowing ones that the Australian +merchant had found a wealthy backer.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“There’s fresh blood been let into his business, you may +rely upon it, dear boy,” said Mr. Wilderson. “I know that he +was in Queer Street last Christmas. Bills referred to drawer, +and that sort of thing. The bankers were beginning to get shy +of his paper. I held a little of it myself, and a deuced deal of +trouble I had to plant it.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>This and much more to hear did Harcourt Lowther seriously +incline. Then he asked Mr. Wilderson to dine with him at a +certain noted establishment in the Strand, and left the court +very grave of aspect and slow of step.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“So my lovely Maude is not a millionaire’s daughter after +all,” he thought. “And my friend Hillary has been dipping +his capacious paw into Francis Tredethlyn’s purse. I ought to +have known that half these reputed rich men are as rotten as a +pear. So this is the explanation of my simple Maude’s heroics. +Poor little girl, <em>she</em> has been the pretty fly with which that accomplished +angler, Mr. Hillary, has whipped the stream for his +big gudgeon! Any little card I may have arranged to play for +myself has been very neatly taken out of my hands; and I find +my friend provided with a needy father-in-law and an extravagant +wife. However, I dare say there’s some small part left +for me to play: and perhaps the best thing I can do is to take +it quietly.”</p> + +<p class='c007'>Harcourt Lowther’s servant!</p> + +<p class='c008'>The man to whom Maude Hillary was now engaged had +once been the valet of her discarded lover. This could scarcely +be a pleasant thought to any young lady early imbued with all +the ordinary prejudices of society. Miss Hillary was not a +strong-minded woman; she could not console herself with a +neat aphorism from Burns to the effect that “a man’s a man +for a’ that;” and to her Harcourt Lowther’s revelation seemed +cruelly humiliating. She had heard of young women in her +own position marrying grooms, or perhaps even footmen, for +love, and she had shuddered at the very idea of their iniquity. +But was it not quite as degrading to marry a valet for money, +as to elope with a groom for love?</p> + +<p class='c008'>“He blacked Harcourt’s boots!” thought poor Maude; and +it is impossible to describe the utter despair expressed in that +brief sentence. She met her lover with a very pale face the next +day, and, seating himself in his accustomed place by her embroidery +<span class='pageno' id='Page_172'>172</span>frame, Francis Tredethlyn saw that there was something +wrong. Alas! poor—Francis, he had already learned to watch +every change upon that beautiful face; already, before the +marriage vows had been spoken, all the miserable tortures of +doubt had begun to prey upon his devoted heart. She had +promised to marry him, but she had not promised to love him. +He remembered that. She had given herself to him in payment +of her father’s debt. She had sacrificed herself in accordance +with the loyal instincts of her noble nature. Francis, +generous and loyal himself, could understand this, much better +than it was understood by Lionel Hillary, for whose sake the +sacrifice was made.</p> + +<p class='c008'>There were times when the young man reproached himself for +his selfishness in accepting the supreme desire of his soul. +Ought he not rather to have wrestled with himself and let this +bright young creature go? But there were other times when +Francis Tredethlyn suffered himself to be beguiled by delicious +hopes. Had not true and honest love sometimes triumphed over +circumstance? Might not the day come when Maude Hillary +would be able to return his affection, to reward his patience?</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I can afford to be so patient,” he thought; “for it will be +such happiness to be her slave.” To-day, watching her pale +face in pensive contemplation, Francis puzzled himself vainly +to guess what was amiss with his promised wife. It was not +only that she was paler than usual,—and the brightness of her +colour had faded very much of late,—but to-day, there was a +shade of coldness in her manner which was quite new to her +affianced husband, and which sent a chill to his heart, always +ready to sink under some vague apprehension where Maude +Hillary was concerned. We hold these supreme joys of life by +so slender a thread, that half our delight in them is poisoned +by the dread of their possible loss.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Maude,” he said by-and-by, after a few commonplace +phrases, and after he had watched her for some minutes in +silence, “I am sure there is something amiss with you to-day. +You are ill—you⸺”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Oh, no, not ill. Only a little worried.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Worried—but about what?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I heard something about you last night, Mr. Tredethlyn,” +said Miss Hillary,—it was the first time she had called him Mr. +Tredethlyn since their engagement,—“something which you +never told me yourself. Mr. Lowther,—a friend of papa’s, who +has just come home from Van Diemen’s Land, told me—that—that—you +had been⸺”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“His servant! Yes, Maude, it is quite true. I was a soldier, +and I was obliged to obey orders. I was ordered to attend upon +Ensign Lowther, and I did my best to serve him well. When I +<span class='pageno' id='Page_173'>173</span>enlisted in her Majesty’s service, I had all sorts of foolish fancies +about fighting and glory, but they all dwindled down to the +usual routine. No fighting, no glory, no desperate attacks upon +Indian fortresses, no scaling walls to plant the British flag upon +the enemy’s ramparts; but any amount of drill and hard work, +and a discontented fine gentleman to wait upon.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>A flood of crimson rushed into Maude’s face as Francis said +this; but the young man’s head was drooping over the embroidery +frame, and he was trifling mechanically with the loose +Berlin wool lying on Miss Hillary’s canvas.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I am afraid you think it a kind of degradation to you, that +<em>I</em> should have been a servant, Maude?” he said presently.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“You never told me⸺”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“No—I told you I had been a private in the 51st. The other +business was only a part of my duty.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Maude was silent for some moments after this. She sat looking +dreamily out of the window, while Francis still twisted +the Berlin wools in his strong fingers. Maude was the first to +speak.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Was it Mr. Lowther you meant just now, when you spoke +of a discontented fine gentleman?” she asked, with some slight +hesitation.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Yes; I never served any other master. Ensign Lowther +was horribly discontented. He was one of those men who can’t +take things easily; but I can understand a good deal of his +peevish restlessness now. I can sympathize with him now, +Maude.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>His voice grew low and tender as he said this.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Why?” asked Miss Hillary, rather coldly.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“He was in love, Maude,—an unhappy attachment, as I understood, +to some lady—an heiress, I think—whose money was +a hindrance to a marriage between them.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>From the beginning to the end of this conversation Maude +Hillary’s thoughts had been employed in debating one question—should +she, or should she not, tell her future husband that +Harcourt Lowther was the man to whom she had been previously +engaged? He knew of that broken engagement, but +he did not know the name of her lover. Was it her duty to tell +him? It would be very unpleasant to do so; but then duty is +so often unpleasant. She was still silently debating this subject; +the words which she should speak were forming themselves +in her mind; when the drawing-room door was opened, and a +servant announced Mr. Lowther. Maude’s heart beat violently. +Would there be a scene? Why had Harcourt come, when he +knew⸺? But Mr. Lowther very speedily relieved her fears +upon this subject. Nothing could be more delightful than his +manner. He was cordial to his old servant, without attempting +<span class='pageno' id='Page_174'>174</span>any airs of patronage. He could not have been more entirely +at his ease with Maude, had he been the most indifferent of first-cousins.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Mr. Lowther was only acting up to his determination to take +things quietly. He had met Lionel Hillary in the City that +morning, and had surprised the merchant by speaking of +Maude’s engagement to Francis Tredethlyn.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“But don’t alarm yourself, my dear Hillary,” he said with a +frank smile. “To say that I adored, and do adore, your daughter, +is only to admit a fact to which, I dare say, every male +visitor at the Cedars would be happy to testify in a round-robin. +Miss Hillary is made to be worshipped. I have only +been one among a score of worshippers. If ever I hoped to +overcome your very natural prejudice against my disgusting +poverty, I have long ceased to hope it; so it was scarcely such +a death-blow to me to discover what had happened during my +exile. Will you let me renew my old relations with your household? +Will you let me be one of the moths again? I know +now that the candle will burn, and that its dangerous glare +alone, and not its tender warmth, is reserved for me, so I shall +have only myself to blame if I come away with a scorched +wing.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Mr. Hillary’s only reply to this rather sentimental speech +was a hearty invitation to dinner.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I can give you your favourite Rüdesheimer with the oysters. +Chablis is a mistake, when you can get good hock. Sharp +seven, remember; but you may go earlier if you care for croquet. +I dare say you’ll find Tredethlyn there.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“The poor fellow is very hard hit, I suppose?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Mr. Hillary smiled and shrugged his shoulders.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I never saw such a devoted creature. Good day.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>The merchant hurried off, and Harcourt walked slowly away, +pondering as he went.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“A devoted creature. Yes, and there has been new blood let +into the commercial anatomy of Hillary and Co. I dare say +that poor devil Tredethlyn has been bled to a hideous extent.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>The dinner at the Cedars went off very pleasantly. What +dinner could fail to go off tolerably well, enlivened by Harcourt +Lowther, when that gentleman cared to exercise his genius for +making conversation? There were other guests at the merchant’s +round table; and after dinner people showed an inclination +to stroll out of the lamplit drawing-room on to the dusky +lawn, and down to the terrace, drawn perhaps by the magnetic +influence of the river, which <em>will</em> be looked at.</p> + +<p class='c008'>It happened somehow—I suppose Mr. Lowther himself +managed it—that he and Maude were left a little way behind +the rest of the loiterers upon the twilit terrace. Ah! how +<span class='pageno' id='Page_175'>175</span>vividly in the memory of both arose the picture of a time long +ago, when they had stood there side by side, by the same river, +in a twilight calm like this, with the same star glimmering +faintly in a low rose-tinted western sky! In Maude’s breast +that memory awakened cruel pangs of shame and remorse! In +Harcourt Lowther’s breast there was a strangely mingled feeling +of bitterness and regret;—bitterness against the Destiny +which had given him so few of life’s brightest possessions; regret +for the vanished time in which some natural earnestness, +some touch of fresh and manly feeling, had yet lingered in his +heart.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Poor, simple, unworldly Maude,” he thought, as he contemplated +the girl’s pale face, “what a penitent look she has! +and yet if she knew⸺”</p> + +<p class='c008'>He smiled, and left the thought unfinished. Then, turning +to Maude, he said, with a little touch of melancholy solemnity, +worthy of Edgar Ravenswood himself, “Miss Hillary, let us be +friends. If you can bury the past, so can I. We may yet strew +sweet flowers of friendship on the grave of our dead love.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“And I really don’t want to let Francis Tredethlyn slip +through my fingers altogether,” Mr. Lowther added, mentally, +as a sort of rider to that pretty little speech.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Maude looked at him with rather a puzzled expression.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“You are very generous,” she faltered, embarrassed, and at +a loss how to express herself, “but—don’t you think it would +be better for us—to—to say good-bye to each other—for ever? +I—I—hope you will marry some one—worthy of you—some +one who is less the slave of circumstances than I am. I want +to do my duty to Mr. Tredethlyn—and I think it is a part of +my duty to tell him of our broken engagement.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“My dear Miss Hillary, you would surely never do anything +so foolish. Poor Francis is the best fellow in the world, but he +is just the man to be ferociously jealous if he once got any +foolish crotchet into his head. I have lived in the same house +with him, remember, and must therefore know him better than +you do. As for saying farewell for ever, and all that kind of +thing, your eternal parting reads remarkably well in a novel, but +it isn’t practicable between civilized people who belong to the +same rank of society. Georgina bids Algernon an irrevocable +adieu on Tuesday morning, and there is burning of letters and +love-locks, and weeping and wailing in Brompton Crescent; and +on Wednesday evening the same Algernon takes her down to +dinner in Westbourne Terrace. We can bury the past in as +deep a grave as you like, and lay the ghost of memory with any +exorcism you please, but we can’t pledge ourselves not to meet +any day in the week in the houses of our common friends.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Maude was quite unable to argue with so specious a reasoner +<span class='pageno' id='Page_176'>176</span>as Mr. Lowther. She did her best to defend her position, and +urged the necessity of telling Francis Tredethlyn the whole +truth. But Harcourt overruled her objections, and in the end +obtained from her a promise that she would still remain silent +as to the name of her discarded lover.</p> + +</div> + +<div class='pbb'> + <hr class='pb c001'> +</div> +<div> + +<div> + <h2 class='c003'><a id='chapter-XXIII'></a>CHAPTER XXIII.<br> <br><span class='fss'>TIDINGS OF SUSAN.</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>Absorbed in the conflicting tortures and delights of his bondage, +Francis Tredethlyn had thought very little of that missing +cousin who had once been so near and dear to him. Now and +then, when he had been most entirely under the spell of Maude +Hillary’s fascinating presence, the vision of a rosy rustic face, +framed in a little dimity bonnet, had arisen suddenly before +him, mutely reproachful of his forgetfulness and neglect, and he +had resolved that on the very next day some new steps should +be taken in the search for Susan Tredethlyn. But then, on that +next day, there was generally some flower-show or <i>matinée +musicale</i>, some boat-race at Putney or appointment to play +croquet at Twickenham; in short, some excuse or other for +devoting himself to Maude Hillary; and poor Susan’s rustic +image melted away into chaos. But Mr. Tredethlyn was suddenly +startled into recollection of his neglected duty by the +receipt of a letter from his solicitors, Messrs. Kursdale and +Scardon, asking for an early interview, and announcing that +they had an important communication to make respecting Miss +Susan Tredethlyn, otherwise Miss Susan Turner.</p> + +<p class='c008'>An important communication. The Cornishman felt his face +grow hot as he read the letter. Susan was found, perhaps, he +thought. He had never mentioned her name to Maude Hillary, +and now it might be that she would need all the devotion of a +loving protector, perhaps even the strong arm of an avenger, at +a time when his every thought was absorbed by his approaching +marriage. The young man did not wait for any ceremonious +appointment, but hurried off at once to Gray’s Inn, and presented +himself before Mr. Kursdale, the senior partner.</p> + +<p class='c008'>In the quiet office Francis Tredethlyn’s hot eagerness tamed +down a little before the matter-of-fact manner of the solicitor. +There was a sober tranquillity in the aspect of the man and of +the place, which seemed to have a singularly soothing effect upon +all human emotion. The sober little clock ticking on the grey +stone mantel-piece—a skeleton clock, exhibiting its entire anatomy +to the public eye, and superior to all meretricious adornment—seemed +to be perpetually ticking out in the stillness:</p> + +<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_177'>177</span>“Let me advise you to take it easily; let me recommend you +to take it quietly: whatever the Law can do for you will be done +for you here; but it must be done in the Law’s own way, which +is very slow, and very complicated, and rather trying to human +patience.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Mr. Kursdale received Francis with calm cordiality, and after +a few stately compliments proceeded at once to business.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“You will remember that my opinion, and that of my partner—for +I availed myself of his judgment in the matter,—you +will, no doubt, recollect, that after considerable study of the +manuscript or journal which you confided to me, I came to the +conclusion that the writer of that journal had contemplated +imposing upon your cousin’s simplicity by a mock marriage, a +sham ceremonial, performed before some person falsely representing +himself to be a district registrar. This opinion was +really forced upon me by the wording of the diary. Look at +the diary in what light I would,—and I assure you I weighed +the matter most carefully,—I could not see my way to any +other conclusion.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I understand,” answered Francis. “I knew the man was +a scoundrel. I made that out, somehow or other, from his +journal. I knew he meant mischief and treachery upon little +Susy; but I couldn’t make out <em>what</em> treachery till you opened +my eyes to the truth.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“But suppose that, after all my care, I was too hasty in +forming a conclusion. Suppose that we have been mistaken, +Mr. Tredethlyn?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“How do you mean, sir?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Some days since, I happened to open a drawer which had +been unopened for a long time, and hidden under a lot of +other documents I found the diary which you entrusted to me. +The sight of the manuscript reminded me of you and your +missing cousin; so I suppose it was only natural that I should +turn over the pages,—not in the hope of finding any new +meaning in them, however, for I had studied them too carefully +for that. I turned them over, and while debating the question +of a mock marriage, the thought suddenly flashed upon me +that it would be at least very easy to ascertain if any genuine +ceremonial had taken place in London. Remember, Mr. Tredethlyn, +I did not for one moment imagine that there <em>had</em> been +a real marriage, and I fully believed that the trouble I was +about to take would be wasted trouble. If I had not from the +first been firmly convinced that the writer of the diary contemplated +a sham marriage, and nothing but a sham marriage, +I should, at the outset, have done that which I only did the +other day.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Francis Tredethlyn’s impatience was so very evident, that the +<span class='pageno' id='Page_178'>178</span>lawyer, slow as he generally was, quickened his pace a little as +he went on.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I was determined to institute an investigation of the books +of every registrar’s office in the metropolis during the months +of January, February, and March, 1849. I entrusted a confidential +clerk with this task, and three days afterwards he +brought me the result of his investigation. On the 27th February, +1849, Robert Lesley was married to Susan Turner, in the +office of the district registrar for Marylebone. The registrar’s +name was Joseph Pepper; the names of the witnesses were +Mary Banks and Jemima Banks, of No. 7, Woolcote Villas, +St. John’s Wood.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Thank God!” ejaculated Francis Tredethlyn, reverently. +“Thank God, for my little Susan’s sake, that this man was not +the scoundrel we took him for.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Whether such a marriage, contracted under a false name on +your cousin’s part, and it is very possible, also under a false +name on the part of the writer of the diary,—whether such a +marriage might not be open to dispute, is another question. +However, the ceremonial, so far as it went, was genuine, and in +any case there would be some little difficulty in setting it +aside.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“It shall not be set aside!” cried Francis, “if I have the +power to enforce it. Thank God for this, Mr. Kursdale, and +thank you for the thought, late as it came, that led to the discovery +of the truth.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“You must remember, though, my dear Mr. Tredethlyn,” +remonstrated the solicitor, who was almost alarmed by the +young man’s eagerness, “you must bear in mind that it is just +possible there may have been some other Susan Turner and +some other Robert Lesley married in the month of February, +1849, and that this registration may refer to them.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I am not afraid of that,” Francis answered, decisively. +“No, the man meant to be a scoundrel, I dare say; but my +little Susy’s artless confidence touched his heart at the very +last, perhaps, and he <em>could</em> not be such a villain as to deceive +her. Rely upon it, Mr. Kursdale, the marriage was a genuine +marriage, and I shall live to see my cousin righted, and to +divide my uncle Oliver’s money with her.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Mr. Kursdale stared at his client in blank amazement.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“You would—do that?” he asked, after a pause.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Of course I would. Poor little ill-used darling! The +money was hers, every penny of it, by right. I—I meant at +first to have restored it all to her; but new claims have arisen +for me, and I can only give her half the fortune that should +have been her own.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>The solicitor stifled a groan.</p> + +<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_179'>179</span>“And now how am I to find Susy?” asked Francis. “This +registration business gives us a new clue, doesn’t it?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Unquestionably. We can, at any rate, hope to find the +two witnesses, Mary and Jemima Banks, and from them we may +discover your cousin’s present whereabouts. I’ll send a clerk +to these Banks people to-morrow.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Do you know I think I’d rather go and look for them +myself, and at once,” said Francis. “I’ve been very neglectful +of Susy’s interests lately, and I feel as if I ought to do something +to make up for my neglect. I’ll go myself, Mr. Kursdale, +and try to find out these people. If I fail, you must help me +to find them. If I succeed, I’ll come here to-morrow morning +and tell you the result.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>The young man wrote the address of the people in St. John’s +Wood in his pocket-book, shook hands with his legal adviser, +and hurried away; he was so eager to atone for the neglect of +the past by the activity of the present. He hailed a hansom in +Holborn, and was on his way to St. John’s Wood five minutes +after he had left the lawyer’s office. He sat with his watch +open in his hand, while he made abstruse calculations as to the +time it would take him to find the females, Mary and Jemima +Banks, extort from them all the information they had to give, +drive back to his hotel, reorganize his toilet, and then make his +way to Twickenham. Mr. Tredethlyn had grown something of +a dandy of late; he employed a West-end tailor, belaboured +his honest head with big ivory-backed brushes, and bedewed his +cambric handkerchief with the odorous invention of that necromancer +of the flower-garden, Monsieur Eugene Rimmel. The +big Cornishman smiled at his reflection in the glass sometimes, +wondering at his own frivolity. But it was for Maude Hillary’s +sake that he brushed his hair laboriously every day, and grew +critical in the choice of a waistcoat. He had even hired a man +to wait upon him, and had a little regiment of boot-trees in his +dressing-room.</p> + +<p class='c008'>St. John’s Wood proper is perhaps one of the most delightful +suburban retreats in which the man can make a pleasant +temple for his <span lang="la"><i>lares</i></span> and <span lang="la"><i>penates</i></span>, who, yearning for the waving +of green trees about his abode, is yet obliged to live within an +easy cab-drive from the City. Dear little villas, embosomed +in foliage; stately mansions, towering proudly out of half an +acre of trimly-kept garden, invite the wealthy citizen to retirement +and repose. The young lilacs and laburnums of to-day +may represent but poorly the bosky verdures of the past, but +still the Wood of St. John is a cool and pleasant oasis in the +great arid desert of London.</p> + +<p class='c008'>But there are outskirts and dependencies of St. John that are +not quite so pleasant,—ragged wastes and shabby little terraces, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_180'>180</span>that hang like tattered edges disgracing a costly garment. +These dismal streets and dreary terraces may not belong of +right to St. John, but they hang about him, and cling to him, +and shelter themselves under the grandeur of his name, nevertheless.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Woolcote Villas, St. John’s Wood, were very pretentious little +dwelling-places, fronted with damp stucco, and with a tendency +to a mossy greenness of aspect that was eminently dispiriting. +Woolcote Villas were of the Elizabethan order of architecture, +and went off abruptly into peaks and angles wherever a peak or +an angle was possible. How such small houses could require +the massive stacks of Elizabethan chimneys which made Woolcote +Villas appear top-heavy and incongruous to the eye of the +stranger, was an enigma only to be solved by the architect who +designed those habitations; and why Woolcote Villas should +each be finished off with a stuccoed mustard-pot, popularly +known as a campanello tower, which was not Elizabethan, and +not practicable for habitation, being open to the four winds of +heaven, was another problem perpetually awaiting the same +individual’s solution.</p> + +<p class='c008'>The hansom cabman, after driving through all the intricacies +of St. John’s Wood on different false scents, came at last upon +Woolcote Villas, through the friendly offices of a milkman, and +pulled up his horse before the door of No. 7.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Francis alighted and rang a bell,—a bell with a slack wire, +which required to be pulled a great many times before any +effect was produced. At last, however, the bell rang; and then, +after a pause and another peal, the door was opened, and a slipshod +servant-maid, with a flapping circle of dirty net hanging +from the back of her disorderly head, emerged from No. 7, +Woolcote Villas, and presented herself at the little gate before +which Francis Tredethlyn was waiting.</p> + +<p class='c008'>The young man asked if Mrs. Banks was at home. Yes, she +was at home, and Miss Banks also. Did he please to want the +apartments?</p> + +<p class='c008'>Mr. Tredethlyn told her that he had particular business with +Mrs. Banks, and that it was that lady whom he wished to see. +The girl looked disappointed. There were a good many bills in +the Elizabethan windows of Woolcote Villas, and the demands +of lodgers were not equal to the supply of furnished apartments.</p> + +<p class='c008'>The sound of a tinkling piano, played very badly, greeted Mr. +Tredethlyn as he entered the narrow passage. The dirty maidservant +opened the door of the apartment whence the sound +came, and Francis found himself in a shabby parlour, tenanted +by a young lady, who rose from the piano as he entered, and +who was very fine and yet very shabby, and a trifle dirty, like +the parlour, and like Woolcote Villas generally. The young +<span class='pageno' id='Page_181'>181</span>lady wore a greasy-looking black silk, relieved by a coquettish +little apron of Stuart plaid, and adorned by all manner of ribands +and narrow velvets, with a good deal of Mosaic jewelry in the +way of hearts and crosses, and anchors and lockets; and her +hair was turned back from her forehead, and flowed in graceful +ringlets of the corkscrew order upon her stately shoulders. She +was altogether a very extensively adorned young lady; and she +gave a little start expressive of surprise and timidity, with just +a slight admixture of pleasure, as Mr. Tredethlyn presented +himself before her. Many single gentlemen had inspected the +long-vacant lodgings; but there had been no one among them +so good-looking, or so splendid of aspect, as this tall, broad-shouldered +Cornishman, revised and corrected by his West-end +tailor.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“The apartments, I suppose,” the young lady said, curtseying +and simpering. “My ma being busy, perhaps you will +allow me to show them to you? <em>This</em> is the parlour. If the +use of a sitting-room only is required, <em>with</em> partial board, including +dinner on Sundays, the terms would be seventeen and +sixpence. Private apartments, without board, fifteen shillings, +or with full board⸺”</p> + +<p class='c008'>The young lady would have proceeded further, but Francis +Tredethlyn interrupted her.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I beg your pardon,” he said, “I don’t require apartments; +my business is quite of a different nature. Your name is +Banks, I believe?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>The lady inclined her head graciously. Life was very dreary +in Woolcote Villas, and the advent of a good-looking stranger +could scarcely be otherwise than agreeable, even if he was not a +prospective tenant.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Mary—or Jemima—Banks?” asked Francis.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I am Miss Jemima Banks,” the young lady replied, with +considerable dignity. She began to think the good-looking +stranger inclined to be presumptuous; but Francis was too preoccupied +to be aware of the intended reproof.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I am very glad that I have been so fortunate as to find +you,” he said, “for I believe you can give me the information I +want. You were present at a marriage before the registrar, at +an office in Folthorpe Street, Marylebone, on the 27th of February, +1849. Can you tell me where the young lady who was +married went after the ceremony? I have some right to ask +this question, for Susan Tre—Susan Turner is my first-cousin.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Well, I never did!” exclaimed Miss Banks, surprised out of +her stateliness. “Poor Susan was your cousin, was she? Why, +she came home here a fortnight after her marriage.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“She came here?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Yes, she was lodging here before that; and she and her +<span class='pageno' id='Page_182'>182</span>husband went off to Paris after the ceremony; and there was no +breakfast and no nothing; and Mr. Lesley, he was always very +high and mighty-like in his ways—he flung down a twenty-pound +note upon the desk before the registrar, and when the +man said something about change, he threw up his head scornful-like—it +was a way he had if anything vexed him,—‘There’s +your money,’ he said, ‘and don’t let’s have any humbug;’ and +then he dragged his poor little wife’s hand through his arm, +just nodded to me and mother, and walked off to the cab without +a word, leaving me and mother in the registrar’s office. +The registrar was full of praises of the gentleman’s generosity, +and said he’d like to tie up a half-a-dozen such couples every +week; but mother was regularly cross about that twenty-pound +note, and went on about it all the way home, saying that Mr. +Lesley had ground her down close enough about the rent for +these rooms, and needn’t go showing off his generosity to strange +registers.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“And my cousin Susan went to Paris?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Yes, but only for a fortnight, and we was to keep the apartments +for her, which we did; and at the end of a fortnight she +came back, dressed beautiful, and with all sorts of lovely things +in her boxes, and she was looking so well and so happy, and +anybody would have thought she was the luckiest woman in +the world. But mother, she used to shake her head about it, +and say she never knew those secret sort of marriages to come +to any good, because when a gentleman begins by not wanting +to own his wife, he’s very apt to end by wishing he hadn’t married +her. But mother always looks at the black side of things, +whether it’s taxes, or whether it’s lodgers, or whatever it is; so +I didn’t take much notice. Mrs. Lesley seemed very happy; +and Mr. Lesley, for the first week or so, he stopped at home a +great deal, and scarcely ever went out, except to take his wife +out to dine, or to a theatre, or something of that kind; and they +really seemed the happiest couple that ever was; but by-and-by +Mr. Lesley went away,—to college, his wife told me; and I +shall never forget how she cried, poor thing, the night he left +her, and how lonely she looked sitting in this room, where +they’d been so happy together, with their little oyster-suppers +after the theatre, and everything that heart could wish. She’d +got some books that he’d left behind him spread out before her +on the table, and she was turning one of them over when I went +in to see her.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“‘They’re very hard to understand, Miss Banks,’ she said; +‘but I try to read them, because I want to be clever, and able +to talk to Robert when he comes home.’</p> + +<p class='c008'>“After this she was almost always reading, poor little thing, +and she’d sit in this room for days and days together; for she +<span class='pageno' id='Page_183'>183</span>didn’t like to go out alone, and mother does drive and worry so, +that it wasn’t often I could get out with her. Mr. Lesley was +to be away three months, she told me; and I’m sure that poor +thing used to count the hours and minutes almost, wishing the +time to go: but when the three months was up, there was no +Mr. Lesley; he was going fishing, somewhere in Wales, with +some grand friends she told me, and wouldn’t be home till the +next vacation. I never saw any one so cut up as she was by the +disappointment, though she wouldn’t talk about it; only I could +see every morning by her face, that she’d been lying awake half +the night, crying her poor eyes out.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Poor girl, poor girl!” murmured Francis Tredethlyn.</p> + +<p class='c008'>This all-absorbing passion called love was a sorrowful thing, +then, he thought, let it come to whom it would—a one-sided +frenzy, a perpetual sacrifice, a self-imposed immolation.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Pray tell me all you can about my cousin,” he said to Miss +Banks. “You cannot imagine how anxious I am to hear of +her.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I’m sure she and me was always the best of friends,” +answered the fair Jemima, with a touch of diplomacy; “and if +you <em>did</em> think of taking the apartments, me and mother would +do all in our power to make you comfortable, if it was only on +Mrs. Lesley’s account; for she was one of the sweetest young +creatures I ever knew. She stayed with us three weeks before +she was married; and I never shall forget her pretty face the +day she first came up from the country after the lodgings had +been took for her.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Mr. Lesley engaged the lodgings, I suppose?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“No, it was Mr. Lesley’s brother.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Oh, he had a brother, then?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Yes, his brother was something in the law, I think—a very +nice gentleman, and almost the living image of Mr. Lesley himself.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Can you give me a description of Mr. Lesley? I never saw +him, and I want very much to know what kind of man he is.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Miss Banks hesitated for some moments.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“It’s so difficult to give an exact description of any one,” she +said. “Mr. Lesley was a tall, handsome-looking man, with fair +hair and blue eyes. I don’t think I could describe him any +nearer than that.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Francis Tredethlyn sighed. There are so many tall, handsome-looking +men with fair hair and blue eyes! and it is chiefly +in melodrama that people go about the world conveniently +marked with a strawberry or a coronet.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Answer me one question,” said Francis, eagerly, “before you +tell me the rest of my cousin’s history. Do you know where +she is now?”</p> + +<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_184'>184</span>Miss Banks shook her head, and sighed despondently.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“No more than you do, sir,” she exclaimed. “It’s two years +and a half ago since I set eyes upon Mrs. Lesley, and I don’t +know no more than the dead what’s become of her since.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Then she’s as much lost to me to-day as she was yesterday,” +said Francis, sadly. “But you can at least tell me all you +know of my poor cousin. It may help me to some clue by +which to find her.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Jemima was evidently a good-natured girl. She begged Mr. +Tredethlyn to be seated, and placed herself opposite to him.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I’ll call mother if you like,” she said; “but I think I can +tell you more about Mrs. Lesley; mother is such a one to +wander, and when one’s anxious to know anything quick, it +don’t do to have to deal with a person whose mind’s always +harping upon lodgers and their ways. Of course everybody +knows lodgers are tiresome, and nobody lets apartments for +pleasure, and nobody would pay taxes if they could help it, and +poor-rates are not expected to raise people’s spirits; but if facts +are disagreeable, that’s no reason you should have them cropping +up promiscuous in every style of conversation. Till now +it used to be a relief to me to come and sit with Mrs. Lesley of +an evening, and hear <em>her</em> troubles, if it was only for the sake of +a change.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I thank you heartily for having been good to my cousin,” +Francis said, earnestly. He was thinking that he would drop +into a jeweller’s shop on his way homeward, and choose the +handsomest diamond ring in the man’s stock for Miss Jemima +Banks.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I don’t know as I deserve any thanks, sir,” answered the +girl. “I couldn’t help taking to Mrs. Lesley, and I couldn’t +help feeling for her when I saw her so solitary and so sad. +Months and months went by before her husband came back to +her; and when he did come her baby was born, and there was +the cradle in the corner just by where you’re sitting, and she +seemed as if she couldn’t make enough of the child.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“A child!” murmured Francis. “Mrs. Burfield never told +me of the child.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“But Mr. Lesley, he didn’t seem so wrapped up in the baby +as she did,” continued Miss Banks; “and I used to fancy she +saw it, and fretted about it. He couldn’t take her out to dinner +anywhere this time, nor yet to the theatre, on account of the +child. She asked him once to take her for a drive somewhere +in the country, and to take the child with them; but he laughed +at her, and said, ‘I don’t think there’s a pleasanter sight in +creation than an estimable mechanic in his Sunday clothes, +with three children in a wicker chaise, and a fourth in arms; +but don’t you think we may as well leave that sort of thing to +<span class='pageno' id='Page_185'>185</span>the mechanic, Susy? the poor fellow has so few chances of +distinguishing himself.’ That was just the sort of speech Mr. +Lesley was always making, half laughing, half scornful; he was +always going on in a sneering way about the baby, and her +being so fond of it, and devoting herself so much to it; and +sometimes one of those nasty speeches of his would set his wife +off crying, for her health wasn’t very strong just then, and any +little thing would upset her. And then he’d look at her with a +hard, cruel look that he’d got sometimes, and throw his book +into a corner, and get up and walk out of the house, banging +the door to that degree that mother would be unnerved for the +rest of the evening. Mr. Lesley took to stopping out very late +this time, and used to let himself in with a latch-key, long after +me and mother had gone to bed; but I know that Susan used +to sit up for him, and I know that he used to be angry with her +for doing it; for Woolcote Villas are slight-built, and I’ve heard +him talking to her as I lay awake overhead. He was at home +for some months this time off and on,—but he’d be away for +days together,—and when he was at home he had a tired way +like, that made me feel uncomfortable somehow to see him. He +was always yawning, and smoking, and sitting over his books, +or lying asleep upon the sofa; and I’m sure if I’d been Mrs. +Lesley, I should have been very glad when he took himself off. +But, Lor’ bless your heart! poor little thing, she fretted about +his going away, just as if he’d been the kindest of husbands. +He wasn’t going back to college any more; he was going to +Germany this time. I know she wanted to go with him, poor, +tender-hearted thing; and I heard her say to him, so pitiful +like, once, ‘Oh, Robert, what will become of me when you are +gone! If you would only take me!’ But he only laughed at +her, and cried out, ‘What! abandon the baby?’ So at last the +time came for him to go, and his poor wife got paler and paler +every day, till I’m sure she looked like a living corpse walking +about the house,” said Miss Banks, unconsciously paraphrasing +Shelley.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“And this man left her?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Lor’, yes, what did he care for her looking white and sorrowful? +He was more wrapped up in his new portmanteaus, and +travelling-bags, and dressing-cases, and such-like, than in his +wife or his child. He went off as gay as could be, though he +left Mrs. Lesley almost broken-hearted. And he didn’t leave +her too well off either, I know, though she always paid mother +to the moment; but all her pretty dresses and bonnets that +Mr. Lesley had bought her in Paris had grown shabby, and he +hadn’t bought her any new ones. He had so many expenses, +she told me; for she was always making excuses for him like, +and pretending that he was very good to her. Poor dear thing! +<span class='pageno' id='Page_186'>186</span>after he was gone away the baby was her only comfort; and +I’m sure if it hadn’t been for that child she’d have fretted herself +away into the grave. Well, sir, the baby was four months +old when Mr. Lesley went away to Germany, and he was only +to be away three months at the longest, Susan told me: she +was very friendly with me, and I always called her Susan. +And she used to count the days just as she did before; and +she’d say to me often how the time was going, and her husband +would soon be back. She used to write him letters,—such long +letters, all full of her talk about the baby, and his taking notice, +and growing, and such-like; but she didn’t have many letters +from him. ‘You see, Jemima, he’s always going from place to +place,’ she said; ‘and then my letters lie at the post-offices +where I direct them, and half the time he doesn’t receive them +at all; so I can’t wonder at not hearing very often from him.’ +She used to be so pleased, poor dear, when a letter did come, +though I’m sure they were short enough, for I’ve seen her open +them; but, ah! when the three months went by, and Mr. Lesley +didn’t come back, how dreadfully she did fret!—always secretly, +though; for she didn’t seem to like that anybody should know +her troubles, for fear they should blame him, the brute! ‘He’s +going farther north,’ she told me; ‘Germany’s such a big +country, you know, Jemima; and I’m afraid, from what Robert +says, he thinks of going beyond Germany, to St. Petersburg, +perhaps. You see, it’s necessary for him to travel in order to +complete his education.’ I couldn’t help laughing outright at +this; for I thought if Mr. Lesley wasn’t educated enough with +all his books, and colleges, and crackjaw languages, and such-like, +he never would be educated. However, that was no business +of mine, and I kept my thoughts to myself. The time +went by, and still there was no news of Mr. Lesley coming +home. He was always going farther and farther north, Susan +told me, when she spoke of him; but she’d got to talk of him +very little now, though I know she was thinking of him and +fretting about him all day and all night too: for I’ve slept with +her sometimes, and heard her moan in her sleep, and speak his +name, oh, so pitiful!”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Poor girl! poor child! she was little more than a child!” +murmured Francis Tredethlyn.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“No more she was,” answered Miss Banks, with energy; +“and him as ill-treated her was a brute. I’m sure <em>I</em> never +thought much of him, with his scornful, sneering ways, treating +me and mother as if we were so much dirt under his feet. +As for that poor young thing, it was a sorrowful day for her +when she first set eyes upon him, fine gentleman though he +was, and above her in station, which she was always telling me +as a kind of excuse for his bad conduct. Well, sir, his letters +<span class='pageno' id='Page_187'>187</span>got fewer and fewer, and still Susan kept her troubles to herself, +and only said he was going farther north, and that he +would he back before the year was out. But the year passed, +and he didn’t come back, and he’d been away nearly ten +months, and the baby was fourteen months old, when a letter +came for Susan, with St. Petersburg on the post-mark. I never +shall forget that day. It was dull, cold, March weather, with +the wind howling and moaning enough to give the liveliest +person the dismals, and Mrs. Lesley had been sitting by the +window all the afternoon watching for the postman. She was +beginning to be nervous about her husband’s health, she told +me, as it was so long since she had heard from him. The postman +came at last, and I was down-stairs with mother when he +came. Mrs. Lesley ran into the passage, and took the letter +herself. We heard the parlour door shut, and then five minutes +afterwards we heard a scream and a heavy fall. Me and mother +rushed up-stairs, and there was poor Susan lying on the floor, +with a letter clutched in her hand, and the fingers clenched +upon it so that neither me nor mother could loosen them. We +lifted her up and laid her on the sofa. She didn’t seem to have +fainted dead away, for she opened her eyes directly, and said, +‘Oh, why didn’t you let me lie there till I died?’ And it was +enough to pierce the hardest heart to hear her. Mother began +talking about the troubles of the world, and asked her if there +was bad news in the letter. ‘Oh, yes!’ she cried; ‘cruel news—dreadful +news!’ And then mother asked her, Was Mr. +Lesley dead? ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘dead to me! dead to me!’ +Mother fancied she meant he was really dead, and said she +hoped Mrs. Lesley was left comfortably provided for. You see, +having seen a deal of trouble herself, mother will look at things +in that light. And then Susan cried out that her trouble was +one that we could never understand. I couldn’t bear to leave +her; but I got mother out of the way,—for her ways are apt to +be wearing to any one that’s in trouble,—and I stopped with +Susan all the evening. But she never spoke once; she only lay +quite quiet on the sofa, with her face turned to the wall; but I +knew that she was crying all the time; and when I took her the +baby, thinking the sight of him might comfort her, she only +waved him away like with her hand. I didn’t leave her till +twelve o’clock that night; but she was still lying on the sofa +with her face turned to the wall. But just as I was going +away she stretched out her hand and said, ‘God bless you, +Jemima! it is very good of you to stop with me, but there is +nothing upon this wide earth that can give me any comfort +now.’ I didn’t see her the next morning, for she went out very +early, and took the baby with her, and she didn’t come back till +late at night, and then she came back without the baby. You +<span class='pageno' id='Page_188'>188</span>might have knocked me down with a feather when I opened the +door to her and saw her come in without the child. ‘Oh, Susan,’ +I said, <a id='tn-donewithrob'></a>‘what have you done with Robert?’—he’d been christened +Robert after his ’pa, and I’d stood godmother for him. +Susan was as pale as death, but she said very quietly, ‘I’ve put +him out to nurse in the country, Jemima. I was obliged to +part from him, for I’m going away.’ I thought all in a moment +that she was going abroad to her husband, and that her grief +had been about parting with her child; but then I remembered +what she’d said the night before, about Mr. Lesley being dead +to her, and do what I would I couldn’t make it out. I’m sure I +was as much cut up at the thought of her going away as if she +had been my own sister.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I wish to Heaven she had stopped with you!” exclaimed +Francis Tredethlyn. “She had few friends, poor girl, and had +no need to leave any one who felt kindly towards her.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“But she did leave us,” replied Miss Banks; “she paid +mother every farthing she owed her, and packed up her few little +things. She would make me take some of her pretty ribands +and collars that had been bought in Paris, and never worn out, +for she didn’t care to dress herself smart when Mr. Lesley was +not at home; and then she sent for a cab, and went away. I +heard her tell the driver Shoreditch railway station, for I ran +out to the cab and kissed her the last thing, and begged her to +come and see us whenever she came back to London; and she +promised that if she lived, and things went well with her, +she would. But from that day to this we’ve never set eyes +upon her.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>And this was the end of what Miss Banks had to tell. +Francis Tredethlyn’s thoughts wandered back to Mrs. Burfield; +it was to her that Susan Tredethlyn had gone in the March of +1851. So far the girl’s history was complete; but the grand +question still remained, Where was she now to be found? A +deserted wife, a friendless and perhaps penniless mother; what +had become of this lonely, inexperienced girl between the March +of 1851 and this present autumn of 1853?</p> + +<p class='c008'>“But surely you can give me some clue by which I may +trace my cousin?” said Francis, after a pause; “you can give +me the address of some friend, some intimate acquaintance of +Mr. Lesley’s: he must have had visitors while he lived here.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Jemima shook her head decisively.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Not one,” she answered: “except for bringing his brother +home to dinner once or twice, when he was first married, no +mortal belonging to Mr. Lesley ever darkened mother’s doors. +Mother and me used to think it odd; and of course there always +are advantages in lodgers keeping much company, which makes +up for extra trouble; and the most audacious lockers-up that +<span class='pageno' id='Page_189'>189</span>ever were can’t go and lock-up under visitors’ very noses. But +we supposed, as Mr. Lesley’s marriage was a secret one, he +didn’t care to bring his friends home.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“But his brother came?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Yes, only when they were first married; he never came +after.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Did you hear the brother’s address?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Well, I have heard that it was in some of those law-places, +the Temple, or Gray’s Inn; but I never heard any nearer than +that.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Mr. Tredethlyn gave a despairing sigh; he thought of Mrs. +Burfield’s description of his cousin, pale and wan, waving her +little hand out of the carriage-window as she left Coltonslough, +friendless and poor. Was it not more than likely that she had +only gone away to die, and that his search for her would end at +last in the discovery of a grave?</p> + +<p class='c008'>But might not the man, the husband who had deserted his +innocent and confiding wife, might not he be found and made to +pay a heavy penalty for his sins? Vengeance seems but a poor +thing at the best, but it is at least something; and Francis +Tredethlyn felt a fierce desire for revenge against the coldblooded +destroyer of his cousin Susan’s happiness.</p> + +<p class='c008'>He asked Miss Banks many more questions; but she could +tell him no more than she had already told him. She had +never heard anything of Mr. Lesley’s family or antecedents, +directly or indirectly. She knew he went to college, but she +never remembered hearing what college. She had fancied sometimes +that Mr. Lesley’s name was an assumed one; indeed, she +was sure it was; for when his brother had come to dine at +Woolcote Villas the first time, he had inquired for Mr. Robert +by some other name. Unfortunately, that other name had +entirely escaped Miss Jemima’s recollection.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“He caught himself up short,” she said, “as if he was vexed +with himself for having let slip that other name, and I never +heard it again the whole time Mr. and Mrs. Lesley were with +us. I don’t think Susan knew much more about her husband’s +affairs than I did, for he always treated her like a child; and +even when he was kindest to her, he seemed to have a high and +mighty way with her, that would have kept any timid person +from asking questions.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Francis thanked Miss Banks very heartily for the trouble she +had taken to enlighten him to the extent of her power, and then +bade her good afternoon.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“If you should meet with any one wanting apartments and +board, either partial or entire, you’ll perhaps be kind enough to +bear mother in mind,” the young lady said, as she escorted him +to the door. He murmured some polite assurance that he +<span class='pageno' id='Page_190'>190</span>would neglect no opportunity of promoting Mrs. Banks’s interest, +and returned to the hansom, which had been waiting for +him during his prolonged interview with the good-natured +Jemima.</p> + +<p class='c008'>From Woolcote Villas he drove to the office of the Marylebone +registrar, and from that official he obtained an assurance that +the marriage between Robert Lesley and Susan Turner, on the +27th of February, 1849, was, so far as his part of the business +went, as legally binding as if the ceremony had been performed +by the Archbishop of Canterbury within the solemn precincts +of Westminster Abbey.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“If they chose to be married in false names, that was their +business,” said the registrar, “and they might find themselves +bothered about it by-and-by. But, except where there’s property, +it isn’t often that a person’s called upon to prove his +marriage. I suppose, by your making the inquiry, there <em>is</em> +property in this case?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Francis Tredethlyn shook his head.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I know no more about that than you do,” he said.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Well, I shan’t forget that business in a hurry,” said the +registrar, who was inclined to be communicative. “In the first +place, the man was one of your regular tip-top swells, and that’s +a kind of party we don’t often see here; and in the next place, +he gave me a twenty-pound note, which was the first windfall +of that kind that ever dropped into my pocket, and is more +than likely to be the last.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Can you tell me what the man was like?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Tall and fair, with blue eyes and light hair; your regular +swell: not the heavy military swell,—more of a delicate +womanish way with him; but such as you may see by the +dozen any afternoon in St. James’s Street or Pall Mall.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>This description was no clearer than that given by Jemima +Banks. Francis could scarcely walk through a London street +without meeting with some man who might be described in the +same words. He left the registrar’s office, and went back to his +hotel; and, absorbed in the arduous duties of his toilet, thought +alternately of lost Susan Tredethlyn, <span lang="la"><i>alias</i></span> Susan Lesley, and +of beautiful Maude Hillary, who was so soon to be his wife.</p> + +</div> + +<div class='pbb'> + <hr class='pb c001'> +</div> +<div> + +<div> + <h2 class='c003'><a id='chapter-XXIV'></a>CHAPTER XXIV.<br> <br><span class='fss'>FRANCIS TREDETHLYN’S DISINTERESTED ADVISER.</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>She was so soon to be his wife! Yes, October was near at +hand. Already the woods and hills beyond the Star and +Garter were bright with autumnal tints of vivid orange and +glowing crimson. The milliners and dressmakers, the outfitters +<span class='pageno' id='Page_191'>191</span>and bootmakers, were perpetually appearing in the hall and on +the staircases at the Cedars. Wicker baskets covered with +oilskin seemed continually passing in and put of Mr. Hillary’s +abode, and Maude could rarely enjoy a quiet half-hour undisturbed +by a mysterious summons, entreating her to inspect or +try on some garment newly brought home by a “young person” +from town. Harcourt Lowther made himself quite at home +both at the Cedars and at Francis Tredethlyn’s chambers +during this period of preparation. Francis took very kindly to +his old master in his new capacity of friend and mentor. The +habits of the past made a link between them. The old half-friendly, +half-supercilious familiarity which had characterized +Harcourt Lowther’s treatment of his servant melted now into a +playful and almost caressing friendliness. Mr. Lowther was a +thoroughly selfish man, and he found himself called upon in +this instance to sacrifice his pride in the cause of his interest. +He affected a hearty interest in Francis Tredethlyn’s affairs, +and contrived somehow, by a series of manœuvres, so subtle as +to be imperceptible, to install himself in the post of chief adviser +to the inexperienced young Cornishman. Mr. Lowther was an +idle man, a very clever man, too versatile for greatness, or even +for any celebrity beyond that species of drawing-room reputation, +which women are able to bestow on the men who are not +too noble to waste a lifetime in small accomplishments and shallow +courtesies. He was very clever, very idle, very much inclined +to quarrel with the decrees of Providence; and in Francis +Tredethlyn he saw the possessor of the two things he himself +most ardently desired—a great fortune, and Maude Hillary for +a wife. But he was true to his resolution to take matters +quietly; and he assisted in the preparations for the wedding +with as much outward show of pleasure as if he had been a +match-making mother rejoicing in the happy disposal of a +whole brood of daughters. The big mansion in the new district +of palatial streets and squares lying between Kensington and +Brompton was fitted and furnished under Mr. Lowther’s superintendence. +He had meetings with architects, gilders, decorators, +and upholsterers; and, with only an occasional reference +to Francis, gave his orders as freely as if the house had +been his own. Sometimes, walking up and down the whole +length of the three drawing-rooms, a strange smile flickered +over his face,—a contemplative smile, which faded away in the +next moment, giving place to that perfection of fashionable indifference +to all things in heaven and earth which was his ordinary +expression.</p> + +<p class='c008'>The appointed day came at last, and poor Francis drove down +to Twickenham, looking as pale as his light waistcoat, but supported +by his friend Harcourt Lowther as best man. Once, and +<span class='pageno' id='Page_192'>192</span>once only, Maude Hillary looked at her discarded lover while +she remained Maude Hillary; but there was a world of mingled +scorn and reproach in that one look. Ah, how different his +love must have been from hers! she thought. Had he forsaken +her for a wealthier bride, she would have gone far away from +the sound of his wedding bells, and the sight of his wedding +finery. In that one look she had seen that he was almost as +pale as the bridegroom; but she could not forgive him for being +there.</p> + +<p class='c008'>There was all the usual business. Autumnal flowers scattered +under the feet of the bride and bridegroom; charity children +in clean pinafores cheering in shrill treble voices as the +bridal carriage drove away; and then a breakfast, and the popping +of champagne corks, and the creaming of delicately perfumed +Moselle, and a little speech-making of the mildest character; +and then a departure amidst all the confusion of a +crowded hall and portico—young-lady intimates pressing forward +to caress the bride; loud-voiced young men congratulating +the bridegroom; servants with white favours standing on tip-toe +to get a peep at the show: and then the postilions crack +their whips, and the carriage rolls away through the chill +autumn evening; and Maude sees Twickenham town spin by her +in a dim glimmer of comfortable firelight, twinkling redly in +cottage windows.</p> + +<p class='c008'>The wedding tour had been amongst the many things which +Harcourt Lowther had kindly undertaken to plan for his friend; +and after a great deal of deliberation, that gentleman had +pitched upon one of the dullest and quietest watering-places +in Devonshire, as the one spot upon all this earth best suited +for Mr. Tredethlyn and his bride.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“You don’t want the stereotyped Continental tour;—the +Rhine steamers are crowded with cockneys, who find it easier +to spout ‘Childe Harold’ than to regulate the administration of +their h’s. What do you know about the castled crag of Drachenfels, +dear boy? and what do you care for all the hackneyed +sentimentality about beery old knights and battered old castles? +You don’t speak any language but your honest native tongue, +and you would be bothered out of your life before your travels +were over unless you took a courier—and then imagine seeing +nature through the eyes of a courier! No, my dear Tredethlyn! +the sort of thing for you is some quiet little watering-place,—‘an +humble cot, in a tranquil spot, with a distant view +of the changing sea,’ and all that sort of thing; in other words, +a tranquil little retreat where you and Mrs. Tredethlyn may +have time to get acquainted with one another.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Francis was only too glad to take such pleasant advice. To +be alone with Maude, alone beside the still grey sea in the quiet +<span class='pageno' id='Page_193'>193</span>autumn evenings, seemed to him the highest bliss that earth +could hold for any human being: and poor Francis blessed his +generous friend for the sound judgment which was to secure +him such happiness.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I dare say I should have gone scampering all over the Continent +but for you, Lowther,” he said, innocently. “Those other +fellows at the Cedars advised a tour through half Europe: ‘See +plenty of life,’ they said; ‘freshen yourself up with change of +scene, and pick up all the jargon you can out of Murray, so as to +be able to hold your own in society. Everybody travels nowadays, +and it doesn’t do for a fellow with lots of tin to be behind +the rest of the world.’ But I’ll take your advice, Lowther. I +wanted Maude to choose the place for our bridal trip, but she +wouldn’t; so we’ll go to the Devonshire village.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>It is not to be supposed, of course, that Mr. Lowther had +any other than the most friendly intention when he selected +Combe Western as the scene of Francis Tredethlyn’s honeymoon; +but, on the other hand, it must be confessed that had +Harcourt wished to inspire Maude with a weariness of her +husband’s society, he could have scarcely selected any place +better calculated to assist him in the carrying out of his design. +At Combe Western, the misty autumn days were unbroken by +any change, save the slow changes of the hours and the gradual +darkening of the sky. There were pleasant drives and romantic +scenery to be found in the neighbourhood of Combe Western; +but Devonshire is a rainy county, and as it rained with little +intermission during the whole of that honeymoon period, +Francis Tredethlyn’s bride was compelled to find her chief +amusement in the prim lodging-house drawing-room and the +society of her husband.</p> + +<p class='c008'>And this society was not congenial to her. He was handsome, +and pleasant to look at; manly, good-tempered, generous. No +mean or unworthy sentiment ever dropped from his lips. She +respected him, and was grateful to him; nay, even beyond this, +there was a certain latent affection for him lurking in some +corner of her heart; but she was very tired of him nevertheless. +To be truly attached to a person, and desperately weary of +them, is not altogether an impossibility. Are we not sometimes +weary of ourselves, whom we yet love so dearly? When you +get tired of a book, you have nothing to do but close the volume +and restore it to its shelf. But you cannot shut up your friend +when he becomes tedious; you must needs go on, wading +through page after page of his conversation, till you yawn in +his face, and arouse him to the unpleasant conviction that he is +a nuisance.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Maude was very gratefully and affectionately disposed towards +<span class='pageno' id='Page_194'>194</span>her father’s benefactor; but she grew terribly tired of his +sole companionship during that rainy six weeks in the quiet +Devonian watering-place. If the bride and bridegroom had +gone on that stereotyped foreign tour so strongly protested +against by Harcourt Lowther, Maude’s sunny nature would +speedily have asserted itself. She would have found in the +rapid changes of scene, in all the pleasant excitement of quick +travelling, plenty of subject-matter for conversation with her +new companion; there would have been always some common +ground on which they could have met, some little incident, +among the hundred incidents of a traveller’s day, which would +have aroused a sympathy between them. But thrown on their +own resources at Combe Western, a Horace Walpole and a +Madame du Deffand might have exhausted their conversational +powers, and yawned drearily in each other’s faces. Maude +found herself wishing for the end of her honeymoon before the +first week had drawn to its close; and Francis, always timidly +watchful of his wife’s beautiful face, felt a chill anguish at his +heart as he perceived her weariness of spirit.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Thus it was that, when they returned to London, the husband +and wife were little nearer to each other than on their wedding-day. +No pleasant familiarity with each other’s thoughts and +feelings had arisen during that dull residence in a dull watering-place. +That subtle process of assimilation by which—except +in some dismal examples—husband and wife grow like each +other in mind and feeling, had not yet begun. They were +strangers still; in spite of Maude’s esteem for her husband’s +character, in spite of Francis Tredethlyn’s blind idolatry of his +wife’s perfections; and Harcourt Lowther, who was one of the +guests at their first dinner-party, was not slow to recognize the +state of the case.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“You’ll get on admirably together by-and-by, dear boy,” +he said to Francis, as they smoked their cigars together in a +luxurious little study behind the big library, some days after +the great dinner. “You’ll get on superbly with your lovely wife, +if you only play your cards cleverly. There must be no Darby +and Joan business, you know—no sentimentalism. Lionel +Hillary’s daughter is just the woman to be disgusted by that +sort of thing. It was all very well, of course, to do the romantic +during the honeymoon; but that’s all over now; your +wife will go her way, and you’ll go yours. Her friends will +absorb a great deal of her time and attention; your friends will +absorb you. You’ll have your club, your horses, your men’s +parties, and perhaps the House,—for you ought decidedly to +get into Parliament,—and it will be utterly impossible for you +to spend all your mornings hanging about your wife’s rooms, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_195'>195</span>or nursing her Skye terriers, as you seem to have done +hitherto.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“But I like so much to be with her,” Francis remonstrated, +piteously. “It’s very friendly of you to give me these hints, +and I dare say you’re right, to some degree. I know Maude +used to seem very tired at Combe Western, and we both got +into the habit of looking at our watches in a dispiriting kind +of way every quarter of an hour; but since we’ve come to +London she has quite recovered her spirits, and we are so happy +together;—you should have heard her laugh the other morning, +when I taught one of the Skyes to shoulder arms with a +lead-pencil.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Mr. Tredethlyn laughed aloud himself at the recollection of +this feat. Harcourt Lowther shrugged his shoulders, and a +frown, or the passing shadow of a frown, darkened his handsome +face.</p> + +<p class='c008'>There are some natures in which there is a certain element of +childishness, and between such natures no desperate antagonism +is ever likely to arise.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“We were rather dull at Combe Western,” said Mr. Tredethlyn, +presently; “but since we’ve been in London we’ve got +on capitally. I’ve been everywhere with Maude—shopping +even; and I’ve written out the lists for her parties, and been on +a round of calls; and, in short, I’ve been the happiest fellow in +all creation.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“No doubt, my dear boy; that sort of thing’s delightful +for a fortnight; but look out for the day when the twin demons +of satiety and disgust will arise to wither all these Arcadian +delights.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Francis pondered gravely. He had been happy since his +return to London, for he had seen Maude bright and lively, +pleased with the novelty of her position, happy in her father’s +affectionate welcome, serene in the consciousness of pure intentions, +and grateful for the devotion, of which some new evidence +met her at every turn. Poor Francis had been entirely +happy; but it needed only a whisper from an elegant Mephistopheles +in modern costume to render this simple Cornishman +doubtful even of his own happiness. It might be only a sham +and delusion, after all; and Maude’s sunniest smile might be +the smile of a victim resigned to the sacrifice.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“If you think that Maude is likely to grow tired⸺” Francis +began, in a very melancholy tone; but Mr. Lowther interrupted +him.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“<em>If</em> I think! dear boy. How can I do otherwise than think +what is obvious to the dullest apprehension? Take life as other +people take it, my dear, simple-minded Tredethlyn, and you’ll +<span class='pageno' id='Page_196'>196</span>find it go smoothly enough with you. Try to live on a plan of +your own, and—the rest is chaos.</p> + +<div class='lg-container-b c013'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>‘<i>Il n’est pas de bonheur hors des routes communes:</i></div> + <div class='line'><i> Qui vit à travers champs ne trouve qu’infortunes.</i>’</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c014'>You had better stick to the vulgar highway, Frank, and not +attempt to set up an exceptional <span lang="fr"><i>ménage</i></span>. No woman will long +tolerate a man tied to her apron string. She may be flattered +by his devotion in the beginning, but she ends by despising his +folly.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>So it was that Francis Tredethlyn began life under the advice +of his friend Harcourt Lowther. After that conversation in the +study the young husband no longer intruded himself upon his +wife’s leisure, or attempted to identify himself with her pursuits. +He found plenty to occupy his own time; for Harcourt Lowther +always had some new scheme for his friend’s employment or +amusement. A race, that no man living in the world could +exist without seeing; a horse to be sold at Tattersall’s; a celebrated +collection of pictures at Christie and Manson’s; a bachelor’s +dinner at a club; a review at Wimbledon;—somehow or +other there was always something to be seen, or something to +be done, of a nature in which Mrs. Tredethlyn could neither +have any part nor feel any interest; and when Francis and his +friend dined alone with her, as they did very often, it happened +somehow that the conversation was always of a horsy and masculine +character, painfully wearisome to the ordinary female +mind. If Mr. Lowther had been intent on widening the natural +gulf which circumstances had set between these two people, he +could scarcely have gone to work more skilfully than he did: +though it is of course to be presumed that he was only an unconscious +instrument, an involuntary agent of mischief and ruin.</p> + +</div> + +<div class='pbb'> + <hr class='pb c001'> +</div> +<div> + +<div> + <h2 class='c003'><a id='chapter-XXV'></a>CHAPTER XXV.<br> <br><span class='fss'>THE ROAD TO RUIN.</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>Maude Tredethlyn took her new life very pleasantly. Her +father was happy. There had been a reaction in the City; +things were going very well for the Australian merchant; and +Francis Tredethlyn was receiving handsome interest for his +thirty thousand pounds.</p> + +<p class='c008'>He brought these tidings to his wife’s boudoir one morning +early in the new year.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I knew you’d be glad to hear it, Maude,” he said; “and +now you see that it <em>was</em> a very fine thing for me to get into +<span class='pageno' id='Page_197'>197</span>your father’s business. So you need not have been uneasy +about the matter, my darling.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Mrs. Tredethlyn lifted herself upon tiptoe, and pursed up the +rosiest lips in Christendom. A kiss, transient as the passing +flutter of a butterfly’s wing, alighted somewhere amid the thickets +of the Cornishman’s beard.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“You dear, good old Francis! That is the pleasantest news I +ever heard, except⸺”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Except what, darling?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“The news that papa brought me home a year ago, when a +generous friend stepped in between him and ruin.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Francis Tredethlyn blushed like a schoolgirl.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Oh, Frank, if I should ever forget that day!” said Maude, +in a low voice, that had something of sadness in its tone.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Was she thinking that there had been occasions since her +marriage when she <em>had</em> almost forgotten how much she owed to +the devotion of her lover,—occasions on which some little social +failure—some small omission or commission—some petty sin +against the laws of the Belgravians and Tyburnians, had been +large enough to blot out all memory of her husband’s goodness? +How can you remember that a man has a noble heart, when, +for want of the ordinary tact by which the well-bred navigators +steer their barks amid the troubled waters of society, he blurts +out some unlucky allusion which paralyzes the conversational +powers of an entire dinner-table, and brings blight and ruin +down upon an assemblage which has fairly promised to be a +success? Or how can you be expected to appreciate the generous +spirit of a being whose ungainly elbow has just tilted half-a-dozen +<span lang="fr"><i>petites timbales de gibier</i></span> into the ruby-velvet lap of +your most important guest?</p> + +<p class='c008'>There were times when Maude was forgetful of everything +except her husband’s genial good-nature and unfailing devotion. +There were other times when her heart sank within her as she +saw his candid face beaming at her from the remote end of a +long dinner-table, and heard his sonorous laugh pealing loud +and long above the hushed accents of Belgravia.</p> + +<p class='c008'>He was her slave. If she loved him—and surely it was impossible +that she could accept so much idolatry, and render no +small tribute of affection in return—her love for him was pretty +much of the same quality as that which she bestowed on her +favourite Skye terrier.</p> + +<p class='c008'>He was such a dear, devoted creature—so sensible, so obedient; +and if he did not quite stand up in a corner to beg, with a bit of +bread upon his nose, it was only because he was not required to +do so. He was the best of creatures—a big, amiable Newfoundland, +ready to lie down in the dirt to be trodden upon by his +mistress’s pretty slipper, or to fly at the throat of the foe who +<span class='pageno' id='Page_198'>198</span>dared to assail her. He was a faithful slave and defender, and +it was very pleasant to know that he was always at hand—to +be patted on the head now and then when he was specially good—to +be a little neglected when his mistress was absorbed by the +agreeable distractions of society—to be blushed for, and even +disowned now and then, when his big awkward paws went ruthlessly +trampling upon some of the choicest flowers in the conventional +flower-garden.</p> + +<p class='c008'>He was her slave—her own. He loved her with an idolatrous +devotion which she could rarely think of without smiling at his +exaggerated estimate of her charms and graces. He was hers—so +entirely that no possibility of losing him ever entered into her +mind. He was hers, and we are apt to be just a little indifferent +about the possessions we hold most securely. It had become a +matter of course that her husband should scatter all the treasures +of his affection at her feet, and hold himself richly repaid +by any waif or stray of tenderness she might choose to bestow +upon him. She had no uneasiness about him,—none of those +sharp twinges of jealousy—those chilling pangs of doubt—those +foolish and morbid fears, which are apt to disturb the peace of +even the happiest wife. She knew that he had loved her from +the very hour of their first meeting, against his will, in despite +of his better reason. She knew that he had been content to +stand afar and worship her in utter hopelessness; and having +now rewarded his fidelity, she fancied that she had no more to +do, except to receive his idolatry, and smile upon him now and +then when it pleased her to be gracious.</p> + +<p class='c008'>There was neither pride nor presumption in her nature; but +she had lived all her life in one narrow circle, and she could not +help being unconsciously patronizing in her treatment of the +man who had taken her Majesty’s shilling, and blacked Harcourt +Lowther’s boots.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Francis Tredethlyn might perhaps have been entirely satisfied +by brightly patronizing smiles, and gentle pattings on the head, +if he had not been blessed with a friend and adviser, always at +his elbow, always ready to step in with an intellectual lantern +held gracefully aloft, and a mocking finger pointed, when the +simple Cornishman’s perception failed to show him the uncomfortable +side of the subject.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“What a darling she is!” exclaimed Mr. Tredethlyn, as he +left the house with Harcourt Lowther, after Maude had parted +from him on the staircase all in a flutter of silk and lace, and +with a feathery bush of golden hair framed in the last Parisian +absurdity in the way of bonnets.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Mrs. Tredethlyn is just the sort of wife for a man of the +world,” Harcourt answered, with a slight shrug of his well-shaped +shoulders. “But I can’t help fancying sometimes that +<span class='pageno' id='Page_199'>199</span>you’re too good a fellow to be thrown away upon the loveliest +creature who ever isolated herself from the rest of the human +race in the remote centre of a continent of moiré antique. Of +course I can’t for a moment deny that you are the most fortunate +of created beings—but—there is always a ‘but,’ you know, +even if one has a beautiful wife and thirty thousand a year. I +suppose it is the habit of my mind to quarrel with perfection. +I think if I were a fresh-hearted, simple-minded fellow like you, +Tredethlyn, I should yearn for something nearer and dearer to +me than a fashionable wife.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>The finger of Mephistopheles, always pointing, generally contrived +to touch a sore place. Francis Tredethlyn, even when he +had been happiest in the sunlight of Maude’s smiles, had felt a +vague sense of that one bitter truth. She was no nearer to him +than of old. The impassable gulf still yawned between them, not +to be bridged over by pretty little courtesies or patronizing smiles.</p> + +<p class='c008'>But in spite of all inward misgivings, Mr. Tredethlyn turned +upon his friend, and hotly denied the truth of that gentleman’s +observations.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Harcourt Lowther was quite resigned to a little fiery contradiction +of this kind. The arrow went home to the mark it had +been shot at, and rankled there. Such discussions were very +frequent between the two men; and however firmly Francis +might argue with his friend in the daytime, he was apt to lie +awake in the dead of the night, like false cousin Amy in the +poem, when the rain was pattering on the roofs of the palatial +district, and wonder, with a dull, aching pain in his heart, +whether Harcourt Lowther was right after all; and Maude—sunny-haired, +beautiful, frivolous Maude—would never be any +nearer and dearer to him than she was now.</p> + +<p class='c008'>In the meantime, Mr. Lowther, who sowed the seeds of the +disease, was always ready with the remedy; and the remedy +was—dissipation.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Harcourt Lowther, in whose few years of legal study had +been crammed the vicious experiences of a lifetime, was eager to +perform the promise he had made to Francis Tredethlyn some +two years before, when the young man first received the tidings +of his uncle Oliver’s bequest.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I told you I’d show you life, dear boy,” he said; “and I +mean to keep my word. While Mrs. Tredethlyn amuses herself +with the usual social treadmill business—perpetually moving +on, and never getting any farther—you and I will see a world +in which life is worth living.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Thus it was that Francis Tredethlyn was lured away from a +home in which he was taught to believe himself unappreciated, +and introduced for the first time within the unholy precincts of +the kingdom of Bohemia.</p> + +<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_200'>200</span>He entered the mysterious regions at first very reluctantly. +He had the ignorant rustic’s notion of Vice, and fancied that +she would show herself in naked hideousness; but he found her +with her natural face hidden under a plaster mask modelled +from the fair countenance of Virtue. It was something of a +caricature, perhaps; for all imitations are so apt to become exaggerations. +He found that Bohemia was a kind of Belgravia +in electro-plate. There were the same dresses and properties, +only a little tarnished and faded; the same effects, always considerably +overdone; the same jargon, but louder and coarser. +Life in Bohemia seemed like a Transpontine version of a West-end +drama, with cheaper scenery and actors, and a more uproarious +audience.</p> + +<p class='c008'>This was the kingdom with whose inner mysteries Harcourt +Lowther affected a fashionable familiarity. He presented his +wealthy friend to the potentates of the kingdom, and carried +him hither and thither to worship at numerous temples, whose +distinguishing features were the flare of gas-lamps, and the +popping of champagne corks, branded with the obscurest names +in the catalogue of wine-growers, and paid for at the highest +rate known in the London market.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Perhaps in all his wanderings in the darksome wilderness +which his Mentor called London life, Francis Tredethlyn’s worst +sin was the perpetual “standing” of spurious sparkling wines, +and the waste of a good deal of money lost at unlimited loo, or +blind hookey, as the case might be. He had high animal spirits +and thirty thousand a year, which common report exaggerated +into sixty thousand, and which the more imaginative denizens +of Bohemia multiplied into fabulous and incalculable riches; so +that he met with a very cordial welcome from the magnates of +the land. But the descent of Avernus, however easy it may be, +is a gradual slope, and not a precipitous mountain-side, down +which a man can be flung headlong by one push from a friendly +hand. Francis Tredethlyn yawned in the faces of the brightest +stars in the Bohemian hemisphere. His frank nature revolted +against the shallow falsehoods around and about him. The +glare of the gas seemed to have no brilliancy: the bloom upon +the women’s faces was only so much vermilion and crimson-lake +bought at the perfumer’s shop, and ghastly to look at in a sidelight. +The laughter had the false ring of spurious coin; the +music was out of tune. In all this little world there was no +element of spontaneity; except perhaps in the uproarious gaiety +of some boyish country squire making a railroad journey through +some fine old property that had been kept sacred and unbroken +for half-a-dozen centuries, to be squandered on a handful of pearls +to melt in Cleopatra’s wine, or expended on the soaps and perfumeries +of a modern Lamia.</p> + +<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_201'>201</span>There was neither bloom nor freshness on anything except on +the wings of a few pigeons newly lured into the haunts of the +vulture tribe. Everything else was false, and withered, and +faded. The smiles of the women, the friendship of the men, +were as spurious as the rhubarb champagnes and gooseberry +Moselles, and were bought and sold like them. Mephistopheles +may lead his pupil to the Brocken, but he cannot compel the +young man to enjoy himself amongst the wicked revellers; nor +can he altogether prevent the neophyte from perceiving such +small <span lang="fr"><i>inconvenances</i></span> as occasional red mice hopping out of the +mouths of otherwise charming young damsels.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Harcourt Lowther found it very hard work to keep Francis +Tredethlyn amused, night after night, in remote and unapproachable +regions, whose very names were only to be spoken in +hushed accents over the fourth bottle of Chambertin or Clos +Vougeot at a bachelor’s dessert. Poor Frank would rather have +been dancing attendance upon his wife, and trampling on the +silken trains of stern matrons and dowagers at the dullest +“Wednesday,” or “Tuesday,” or “Saturday,” in all the stuccoed +mansions in which Maude’s pretty face and pleasant manners, +and his own good old Cornish name and comfortable income, had +secured his footing. He was very good-natured, and did not +care how much bad wine he was called upon to pay for. He +could lose a heavy sum at blind hookey without the faintest +contraction of his black eyebrows, or the smallest depression of +his lower jaw. But he did not enjoy himself.</p> + +<p class='c008'>He did not enjoy himself—and yet somehow or other he went +again and again to the same temples, always under convoy of +his friend Harcourt, and generally very firmly resolved that +each visit should be the last. But there was always some special +reason for another visit—an appointment with some elegant +acquaintance of the vulture tribe, who wanted his revenge at +blind hookey; or a little dinner to be given at the Star and +Garter, in honour of some beautiful Free-Lance, whose chief +fascinations were the smoking of tissue-paper cigarettes and a +vivacious disregard of Lindley Murray. There was always some +engagement of this kind; and as it happened somehow that +Francis Tredethlyn generally found himself pledged to act as +paymaster, it would of course have been very unmanly to draw +back. If he could have sent his friend Lowther and a blank +cheque as a substitute for his own presence, he would gladly +have done so; but his friend Lowther took care to make that +impossible. So the matter always ended by Mr. Tredethlyn +finding himself, at some time on the wrong side of midnight +seated at the head of a glittering dinner-table; with the ruins +of an expensive dessert and the faces of his guests only dimly +visible athwart a thick and stifling vapour of cigar smoke; +<span class='pageno' id='Page_202'>202</span>while the clamour of strident laughter mingled with the occasional +chinking and clattering of glass, as some applauding +hand thumped its owner’s approval of the florid sentiments in +an eloquent postprandial oration.</p> + +<p class='c008'>It is impossible to be perpetually paying for sparkling wines +without occasionally drinking a little too freely of their bubbling +vintage. Francis Tredethlyn, <a id='tn-clicquot'></a>under the influence of +unlimited Moet or Clicquot, found the Bohemians a much pleasanter +kind of people than when he contemplated them in the +cold grey morning light of sobriety. Harcourt Lowther took +care that his friend should pretty generally look at things +through a rose-tinted medium engendered of the juice of the +grape; for he found that it was by this means alone that he +could retain his hold upon his pupil.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Go where he might, the Cornishman carried his wife’s image +in his heart, and he would have left the most brilliant assemblage +in Bohemia for a quiet <span lang="fr"><i>tête-à-tête</i></span> in Maude’s boudoir; if his +friend Harcourt had not carefully impressed upon him that his +entrance into that pretty little chamber was an intrusion only +tolerated by Mrs. Tredethlyn’s good nature.</p> + +<p class='c008'>There is no need to enter very minutely upon the details of +the work which Harcourt Lowther was doing. The art of +ruining a well-disposed young man is not a very difficult one; +but Mr. Lowther had reduced the art into a science. His great +effects were not the sublime hazards of genius, but the calculated +results of a carefully studied process. So many nights +in a tainted atmosphere; so many Richmond and Greenwich +dinners; so many subtle insinuations of Maude’s indifference, +must produce such and such an effect. Mr. Lowther displayed +none of that impolitic and vulgar haste with which a meaner +man might ruin his friend. He never hurried his work by so +much as a single step taken before its time. But he never +wavered, or relented, or turned aside even for one moment from +the course which he had mapped out for himself. So, in the +course of that London season, it became quite a common thing +for a street hansom to bring Mr. Tredethlyn to the gigantic +stuccoed mansion which he called his own in the early sunlight +of a spring morning. There were even times when the +returning wanderer found it no easy matter to open a door +with a patent latch-key, which <em>would</em> go meandering hopelessly +over the panel of the door, scratching all manner of eccentric +circles and parabolas on the varnish, instead of finding its way +into the key-hole. There was one awful night, on which +Maude, coming home from some very late assembly, was +stumbled against by a tipsy man who was groping his way up +the great stone staircase, and found, to her unutterable horror, +that the tipsy man—who apologized profusely for tearing half-a-dozen +<span class='pageno' id='Page_203'>203</span>yards of Mechlin from the hem of her skirt, declaring +that he was “ver’ sorr’, ’pon m’ wor’; b’t y’ see, m’ dea’ +Maurr, if y’ w’ll wear dress s’ long, mussn’ be s’prise get torr t’ +piecess”—was her husband.</p> + +</div> + +<div class='pbb'> + <hr class='pb c001'> +</div> +<div> + +<div> + <h2 class='c003'><a id='chapter-XXVI'></a>CHAPTER XXVI.<br> <br><span class='fss'>A CHILLING RECONCILIATION.</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>That unfortunate meeting on the stairs made a very deep impression +upon Maude Tredethlyn. She had never before encountered +drunkenness; and it was one of those sins which +seemed to her to belong to a region of outer darkness, in which +decent people had no place. Her father had always been as +sober as an anchorite; her father’s guests were gentlemen. +She had heard, now and then, in the course of her life at the +Cedars, of a drunken gardener dismissed with ignominy from +the gardens—a drunken groom degraded from has rank in the +stables. But Francis, her husband,—that <em>he</em> should be thick +of speech and unsteady of foot under the influence of strong +drink!—it seemed almost too horrible for belief. She lay +awake in the morning sunlight, thinking of Francis Tredethlyn’s +misdemeanour.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“And just as I fancied that I was beginning to love him!” +she thought, regretfully. Would they meet at breakfast? she +wondered. And if they did meet, what would Francis say to +her? A sickly dread of that meeting took possession of her +mind. If he apologized, how was she to answer him? Would +it be possible for her to conceal her disgust?</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Let me remember his goodness to my father,” she murmured. +“Oh, can I ever be so base as to forget that?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>The possible meeting at the breakfast-table was very easily +avoided. Mrs. Tredethlyn had a headache, and took her strong +green tea and dry toast in the pretty little boudoir, with the +pink draperies and Parian statuettes, the satin-wood cabinets +and bookcases, the Persian carpets and polar-bear-skin rugs, +the marqueterie <span lang="fr"><i>jardinières</i></span>, and toy Swiss-cottage birdcages, +selected by Harcourt Lowther. It was rather an enervating +little boudoir, eminently adapted for the perusal of French +novels, and the neglect of all the duties of life. Mrs. Tredethlyn +breakfasted in this room; so there was no uncomfortable +meeting between the husband and wife. Francis left the house +before noon, in order to keep an appointment with his friend +Mr. Lowther. They were going together to the Doncaster +spring meeting, where Bohemianism would be rampant, and +were to be away for some days. Poor Francis ran into the +library, while his friend waited for him, and scribbled a hasty +<span class='pageno' id='Page_204'>204</span>note to his wife, full of penitence and self-humiliation. He +gave the missive to Mrs. Tredethlyn’s maid at the foot of the +stairs, while Harcourt was standing in a little room opening +out of the hall, arranging the strap of a race-glass across his +light overcoat. Mr. Tredethlyn went back to the library in +search of a railway rug which he had flung off his arm when +he sat down to write the letter; and during his brief absence +there was a flutter of silk in the hall, and a little conference +between Mr. Lowther and the Abigail.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Half an hour afterwards, when the two men were walking up +and down the platform at the King’s Cross station, with cigars +in their mouths, Mr. Lowther handed his friend the identical +letter which Francis had entrusted to his wife’s maid.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“You can post that to its address if you like, dear boy; but +I think <em>I</em> should light my cigar with it. The seal is unbroken, +you see; but I fancy I can make a tolerable guess at the contents +of the epistle. Dear old Frank, if you want to preserve +the merest semblance of manhood, the poorest remnant of independence, +never beg your wife’s pardon.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Of course Mr. Tredethlyn was very angry. Harcourt Lowther +was prepared to encounter a given amount of resistance. +The wave may lash and beat itself against the quiet breast +of the rock; and the rock, secure in its supremacy, has only +to stand still until that poor worn-out wave crawls meekly +to the stony bosom, a conquered and a placid thing. Mr. +Lowther had his work to do, and he took his own time about +doing it. The apologetic little epistle was <em>not</em> sent to Mrs. +Tredethlyn; and at an uproarious after-dinner assemblage at +the Reindeer, Francis abandoned such frivolous stuff as sparkling +Moselles and Burgundies for fierce libations of brandy +punch. He made a tremendous book for all manner of events, +always under the advice of his friend; indeed, its pages contained +many rather heavy engagements with Mr. Lowther himself, +who affected extreme simplicity amongst the magnates of +the turf, but who was nevertheless eminently respected by those +gentlemen, as being of the deep and dangerous class—a dark +horse, secretly exercised on lonely commons at weird hours of +the early morning, and winning with a rush when he was least +expected to do so.</p> + +<p class='c007'>While Francis was seeing life through the medium provided +for him by his experienced adviser, Maude enjoyed herself after +her own fashion. She had been very happy at Twickenham; +but she had never until now been entirely her own mistress, +with unlimited credit and unlimited ready money, and all the +privileges of a matron. At the Cedars she had been always +more or less under her father’s direction. She had acted very +<span class='pageno' id='Page_205'>205</span>much as she pleased upon all occasions; but she had made a point +of consulting him about the smallest step in her simple life; a +round of calls, a day’s shopping, a little musical gathering after +a dinner-party, the amount of a subscription to a charity,—even +the colour of a dress.</p> + +<p class='c008'>But now the young matron shook off even the gentle fetters +which had held the girl, and spread her pinions for a bolder +flight. A much wider world had opened itself to the merchant’s +daughter since her marriage. The story of Mr. Tredethlyn’s +fortune—always multiplied by the liberal tongue of rumour—was +one of the most popular topics amongst the denizens of the +new district in which Mr. Tredethlyn’s house was situated. +None of these West-end people knew that Lionel Hillary’s +position had ever endured a dreadful crisis of uncertainty and +terror. The marriage between Maude and Francis was supposed +to be one of those sublime unions in which wealth is +united to wealth—the alliance of a Miss Rothschild with a +Master Lafitte—a grand commercial combination for the consolidation +of capital.</p> + +<p class='c008'>So Maude took her place as one of the most important novelties +of the current year. She gave great receptions in her three +drawing-rooms, whose gorgeous decorations were just a little +too much like the velvet and ormolu magnificence of a public +room at a gigantic hotel. She organized dinner-parties, and +revised and corrected a <span lang="fr"><i>menu</i></span>, with the <span lang="fr"><i>savoir faire</i></span> of a Brillat +Savarin in petticoats. Always accustomed to a reckless expenditure, +she had no idea of the necessity for some regulation in +the expenses of a large household. Left a great deal to herself, +and frequently at a loss for occupation, she often spent her husband’s +money from sheer desire for amusement. After that +unlucky encounter on the stairs, she resigned herself entirely to +her position as a fashionable wife. Her husband went his way +unmolested, and she went hers. She was tolerably happy, for +the life was a very pleasant one to live; but oh, what a vain, +empty, profitless existence to look back upon!—the success of a +dinner, the triumph of an audacious toilette, the only landmarks +on a great flat of frivolity. But Mrs. Tredethlyn was not at +the age in which people are given to looking back; she was +rich, beautiful, accomplished, agreeable, with that dash of recklessness +in her gaiety which makes a woman such an acquisition +in a drawing-room, and the fumes of the incense which +her admirers burned before her were just a little intoxicating. +The Twickenham loungers, who had worshipped her mutely +and reverently from afar off, found themselves distanced now by +bolder adorers, and, conversing amongst themselves upon the +staircases and on the outer edges of crowded drawing-rooms in +the stuccoed district, shook their heads and pulled their whiskers, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_206'>206</span>gravely opining that Mrs. Tredethlyn was “going the +pace.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Maude had been Francis Tredethlyn’s wife more than six +months, and the London season was at its fullest height, when +an accidental meeting with Julia Desmond brought about that +young lady’s restoration to her old position of confidante and +companion to the pampered daughter of her dead father’s friend. +The two women met in the Pantheon; and it was a terrible +shock to Maude to see her old companion dawdling listlessly +before a stall of toys, dressed in a shabby black silk and a +doubtful bonnet, and attended by two ungainly girls in short +petticoats and scarlet stockings.</p> + +<p class='c008'>The proud spirit of the Desmonds had been crushed by the +iron hand of necessity. In these perpetual duels between pride +and poverty, the result seems only a question of time. Poverty +must have the best of it, unless, indeed, death steps between the +combatants to give poor pride a doubtful victory. Julia Desmond +had carried her pride and anger away from the luxurious +idleness of the Cedars, to nurse them in a London lodging. +The only money she had in the world was a ten-pound note, +left out of a sum which the liberal merchant had given her for +the payment of a dressmaker’s bill. She had the jewels given +her by Francis Tredethlyn—the diamonds which she had thrown +at his feet in the little study at the Cedars, on the night of the +amateur theatricals—but which the sober reflections of the +following morning had prompted her to retain amongst her +possessions. She had these, and upon these she might have +raised a very considerable sum of money. But the angry Julia +had no desire to raise money. A life of idleness in a London +lodging was the very last existence to suit her energetic nature. +She inserted an advertisement in the “Times” upon the very +day after her departure from Twickenham, and she went on advertising +until she succeeded in getting a situation as governess +in a gentleman’s family. But ah! then came the bitterest of +all her trials. She fancied that her life, wherever she went, +would be more or less like her life at the Cedars. There would +be a great deal more work, perhaps, there might be less luxury, +less gaiety, but it would be the same kind of life: while on any +day the lucky chance might arise, and the beauty of the Desmonds +might win her some great prize in the matrimonial +lottery.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Alas for Julia’s inexperienced notions of a governess’s existence! +She found herself the drudge of an exacting mistress, +with every hour of her dreary life mapped out and allotted for +her, with less share in the social pleasures of the house she lived +in than if she had been the kitchen-maid, and with two small +tyrants in crinkled hair and holland pinafores always on the +<span class='pageno' id='Page_207'>207</span>watch to detect her shortcomings, and to twist them into excuses +for their own. The dreadful monotony of her life would +alone have made it odious; but Julia had “a sorrow’s crown of +sorrow” perpetually pressing on her tortured brow. She had +the recollection of happier things—the pleasant idleness at the +Cedars, the position of Francis Tredethlyn’s affianced wife. +And she had given up this position in one moment of ungovernable +rage and jealousy. She had suffered one mad impulse of +her proud nature to undo the slow work of months. Miss Desmond +had ample leisure for the contemplation of her folly during +the long winter evenings which she spent in a third-floor sitting-room +at Bayswater, hearing unwilling children grind hopelessly +at a German grammar by the light of two guttering tallow-candles. +She <em>did</em> contemplate her folly, while the guttural +verbs and declensions fell with a droning noise on her unlistening +ears; but the rage which swelled her bosom was against Maude +Hillary, and Maude alone.</p> + +<p class='c008'>She saw Maude’s carriage in the Park sometimes, while she +took her allotted walk with the unwilling children, who might +have been pleasant children enough, perhaps, if they had not +been weighed down by intellectual exercises compared to which +the enforced physical labours of Toulon would have seemed light +and agreeable. Julia saw her old companion, and her mind +went back to the sunny afternoons on the lawn at Twickenham; +and the sight of the pretty face and golden hair, the Skye +terriers and neatly appointed equipage, stirred the fire of hatred +always burning in her breast, until she could almost have shaken +her small fist at the merchant’s daughter.</p> + +<p class='c008'>She saw the announcement of Maude’s marriage in the +“Times,” and hated her still more. She saw Maude in the +Park, after her marriage, in a more splendid equipage than the +landau from the Cedars, and she hated her even more and more. +She set her teeth together, and drew back under the shadow of +the trees to watch Francis Tredethlyn’s wife drive by.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“She has cheated me out of it all,” she thought; “it would +all have been mine but for her treachery.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Then one bright and sunny afternoon in early May the two +women met,—Julia a wan shadow of her former self, worn out +with hard work, depressed by the monotony of her life, indifferent +as to her dress and appearance; Maude a beaming +creature in gauzy mauve muslin, with a Watteau skirt, all +a-flutter with ribands, and a voluminous train sweeping the +dust behind her.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Dear Julia⸺”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Maude—Mrs. Tredethlyn!”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Miss Desmond turned as pale as death. The encounter had +come upon her very suddenly, and she was neither physically +<span class='pageno' id='Page_208'>208</span>nor mentally able to bear it. She set her teeth and tried to +flash the old defiance from her dark eyes. But the light of that +once fiery glance died out like the flame of a candle which burns +feebly in the glare of the morning sun. Julia was quite worn +out by the life she had been leading for the last year and a half. +The pride of a Somerset might give way beneath a long course +of overwork and indifferent diet.</p> + +<p class='c008'>After that first exclamation of surprise she drew herself to +her fullest height, and tried to pass Mrs. Tredethlyn with a +bow, and a faint, cold smile of recognition, but Maude stopped +her.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Dearest Julia, if you knew how anxious and unhappy I have +been about you, I’m sure you would not want to pass me by. +Do let us be friends. The past is forgotten, isn’t it? Yes, I’m +sure it is. Will you come up-stairs to the picture-gallery? +that’s always a nice solitary place where one can talk. Are +those young ladies with you? What very nice little girls! +Miss Desmond and I are going up-stairs, dear, to have a chat. +Will you come with us?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>The elder of Julia’s pupils, to whom this question was addressed, +replied only by a stony glare. She was petrified by +the audacity of this smiling creature in mauve who dared to +take possession of her governess. The youthful mind, soured +by a long course of German declensions, is apt to contemplate +everything in a gloomy aspect.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Maude and Julia went past poor Haydon’s big cold picture, +and made their way to a small room which was quite empty. +Julia’s face had a stern darkness upon it, which might have +frightened any one less hopeful than Maude; but that young +lady had been surrounded by an atmosphere of love from her +cradle upwards, and was entirely unacquainted with the diagnosis +of hatred. She despatched the children to look at the +pictures in the larger rooms, and then laying her hand caressingly +upon Miss Desmond’s arm, she said, very earnestly,—</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Dearest Julia, I hope you have forgiven me?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Miss Desmond locked her lips, and stood for some moments +with her face quite fixed, staring at vacancy. There were +hollow rings round the dark eyes now, and the oval cheeks +had lost their smooth outline. Perpetual drudgery and friendless +solitude had brought Julia very low; but the Desmond +pride still struggled for the mastery over its grim assailant—necessity.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I don’t know that I have anything to forgive,” said she, +after an ominous pause; “Mr. Tredethlyn was free to transfer +his affections as often as he chose. I was very glad to read of +your marriage, for it was at least satisfactory to find that he +had not changed his mind a second time. I do not blame any +<span class='pageno' id='Page_209'>209</span>one but myself, Mrs. Tredethlyn. I should have been wiser +than to entrust my happiness to a man who⸺”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Miss Desmond stopped abruptly. She made a long pause, +during which she contemplated Maude, almost as if she had +been looking for some tender spot in which to plant her dagger.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I must not forget that he is your husband, and I do not +wish to say anything humiliating to you; but I <em>cannot</em> forget +that he is not a gentleman. No gentleman would have treated +any woman as Mr. Tredethlyn treated me.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>If Julia’s conscience had had a voice, it might perhaps have +chimed in with an awkward question here: “And would any +lady have spread a net to catch a rich husband, Julia, trading +on the generosity of his simple nature, and angling for the fortune +of a man whose heart was obviously given to another?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Mrs. Tredethlyn’s bright face crimsoned, and her lower lip +fell a little. It is not to be supposed that she could be very +fond of her husband; but she felt any allusion to his shortcomings +almost as keenly as if he had been the incarnation of +her girlish dreams. Whatever he was, he was hers, and she +was responsible for him.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“If generosity of heart could make a gentleman, Julia,” she +said, almost entreatingly, “I think Francis would be the first of +gentlemen.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Miss Desmond did not condescend to reply to this observation.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Oh, Julia,” Mrs. Tredethlyn said, after another little pause, +“how can you be so unkind and unforgiving? Have you forgotten +how happy we used to be together long ago at the +Cedars? If—if I thought you were pleasantly circumstanced +now, I would not worry you with any proffers of friendship; +but somehow I cannot think that you are happy. Dear Julia, +forgive me for the past, and trust me once more.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>The stony look in Miss Desmond’s face did not melt away +under the influence of Maude’s tenderness; but presently, with +an almost awful suddenness, she sank upon the nearest chair, +dropped her face upon her clasped hands, and burst into a +passion of tears—convulsive sobs that shook her with their +hysterical force. The strong will of the Desmonds asserted +itself to the very last, for this passionate outburst was almost +noiseless. The slender frame writhed and trembled, the chest +heaved, the small hands were clenched convulsively, but there +was no vulgar outcry. Miss Desmond recovered herself almost +as suddenly as she had given way to her emotion, and drew up +her head proudly, though her face was blotted with tears.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Heaven help me!” she exclaimed; “what a poor weak +wretch I am!”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“You will let me be your friend again, won’t you, Julia? +<span class='pageno' id='Page_210'>210</span>You’ll come and live with me once more? You need see very +little of Mr. Tredethlyn, if you dislike him. He and I are quite +fashionable people, I assure you, and he is very seldom at home. +I shall be so glad to have you with me. I go a great deal into +society, and I know you like society, Julia. Come, dear, let us +be friends again, just as we used to be in the dear old times.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Maude gave a little sigh—she was apt now and then to think +sentimentally of that remote period of her existence, some four +or five years back, when she had believed that the happiest fate +Heaven could award her would be a union with Harcourt +Lowther. Even now, though she had schooled herself to think +of him coldly, though she tried very hard not to think of him +at all, the memory of the old time would come back; the +picture of the home that might have been—the little cottage in +St. John’s Wood—the long quiet evenings, made delightful by +genial companionship—the pleasant hours devoted to art—the +dear old concertante duets by Mozart and Beethoven—the +“two souls with but a single thought, two hearts that beat as +one,”—the images of these things were apt to arise suddenly +before her, in the midst of her frivolous pleasure in her fine +dresses, and gorgeous house, and admiring friends.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Dear Julia,” she said, winding one arm caressingly about +the Irish girl, “you will come, won’t you?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Yes,” Miss Desmond answered, “I will come if you want +me. But I must come upon a new footing. This time I must +work for my wages. I have been a hired slave ever since I left +your father’s house. I will be your servant, Mrs. Tredethlyn, +if you choose to hire me.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Julia, you will be my friend, just as you used to be.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“No,” cried Miss Desmond, with a resolute gesture of her +hand, “no; if you want a companion to keep your keys and +attend to your lapdogs, to finish fancy-work that you have +begun and grown tired of, to read French novels to you when +you want to be read to sleep, to write your letters of invitation, +to take the bass in your duets, or carry an occasional message +to your milliner,—if you want a person of this kind, I am quite +willing to be that person.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Julia!”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I will come to you on those terms, or not at all.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“You shall come to me on any terms you please, so long as +you come.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Very well, then, I will come. My present employer gives +me sixty guineas a year, and makes me work harder than a +pack-horse. You can give me the same money, if you think my +services worth so much. I will make arrangements for leaving +my present situation. A housemaid left the other day, and I +believe she gave her mistress a month’s notice—I suppose the +<span class='pageno' id='Page_211'>211</span>same rule will hold good with me: I will come to you at the +end of that time, unless you change your mind in the meanwhile.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I shall not change my mind; I only wish you could come +to me to-day. Take my card, dear, and give me yours.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I have no cards,” answered Miss Desmond. “I have +neither name nor place in the world, and have no need of +visiting-cards.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>She wrote her address upon the back of an envelope, and +gave it to Mrs. Tredethlyn. To the last her manner was cold +and ungracious: but Maude parted from her happy in the idea +that she had rescued her old companion from a life of drudgery.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Why should I not be her hired slave? I shall still have the +right to hate her,” thought Miss Desmond, as she went back +to Bayswater with her gloomy charges.</p> + +</div> + +<div class='pbb'> + <hr class='pb c001'> +</div> +<div> + +<div> + <h2 class='c003'><a id='chapter-XXVII'></a>CHAPTER XXVII.<br> <br><span class='fss'>SEEING A GHOST.</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>Under the perpetual influence of his friend and master, Harcourt +Lowther, Mr. Tredethlyn’s days and nights were so fully +occupied that he had very little leisure for serious thought. +Day by day the patient master taught his deadly lesson; day +by day the luckless pupil took his teacher’s precepts more +deeply to heart. The simple, credulous nature was as malleable +as clay under the practised hand of the modeller, and took any +shape Mr. Lowther chose to give it.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Francis was fully impressed with the idea that his money had +purchased a lovely wife whose heart could never be given to +him. All that fair fabric of hopes and dreams which had been +his when he married Maude Hillary had been slowly but surely +undermined, and there was nothing left of its brightness but +the memory that it once had been. He thought of those foolish +hopes now with anger and bitterness. Could he at any time +have been so mad, so blind, so besotted, as to believe that this +beautiful creature, perpetually floating in an atmosphere of +frivolity and adulation, would ever fold her wings to nestle tenderly +in his rude breast? Othello, recalled to the sense of his +declining years and grimy visage by the friendly bluntness of +Iago, could scarcely have thought more bitterly of his lovely +Venetian bride than Francis thought of Maude after six months’ +daily association with his old master. But if the poison was +quick to do its deadly work, the antidote was always at hand. +With thirty thousand a year and a fine constitution, what need +has a young man for reflection? It is all very well for Mr. +Young the poet, having failed to obtain wealth or preferment, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_212'>212</span>to retire from a world which has treated him ill, and meditate +upon the transitory nature of earthly blessings that he has +been unable to obtain; but with youth and thirty thousand per +annum, surely no man need be bored by such a darksome guest +as dull care. Harcourt Lowther did his best to shield his friend +from the gloomy intruder by contriving that Francis Tredethlyn’s +existence should be one perpetual fever of hurry and excitement. +But though you may carry a man from racecourse to racecourse, +by shrieking expresses tearing through the darkness of +the night; though you may steep him to the lips in theatres +and dancing-halls; though you may drag him from one scene of +mad unrest to another, till his tired eyeballs have lost their +power to see anything but one wearisome confusion of gas light +and colour,—you <em>cannot</em> prevent him from thinking. The involuntary +process goes on in spite of him. He will think in a +hansom cab tearing over the stones of the Haymarket, in an +express train rushing towards Newmarket at sixty miles an hour, +on the box-seat of a guardsman’s drag, on the rattling fire-engine +of an aristocratic amateur Braidwood, on the downs at Epsom—yes, +even at the final rush, when every eye is strained to concentrate +its power of sight upon one speck of colour, the man’s mind, +for ever the veriest slave to follow that will-o’-the-wisp called +association, will wander away in spite of him,—to mourn above +a baby’s grave, to sit amidst the perfume of honeysuckle and +roses in a still summer twilight trifling with the rings on a +woman’s hand.</p> + +<p class='c008'>There were times when thought would come to Francis Tredethlyn, +in spite of all his friend’s watchful care. He would sit +at the head of a dinner-table at the Crown and Sceptre, staring +vacantly at the frisky wine-bubbles in his shallow glass, and +thinking how happy he might have been if Maude had only +loved him. Ah, this poor substitute of noise instead of mirth,—this +pitiful tinsel of dissipation in place of the pure gold of +happiness,—how miserable a mockery it was even at the best!</p> + +<p class='c008'>Mr. Lowther generally broke in upon such gloomy reveries as +these by calling to the waiter to exchange his friend’s shallow +glass for a tumbler. But there are pangs of regret not to be +lulled to slumber by all the sparkling wines that were ever +grown in the fair champagne country, and Harcourt Lowther +sometimes found his work very difficult.</p> + +<p class='c008'>But amidst such perpetual hurry and excitement it was only +natural that some things should be almost entirely forgotten by +Francis Tredethlyn, and amongst these forgotten things were +the sorrows of his missing cousin. The Gray’s-Inn lawyers +had <span lang="fr"><i>carte blanche</i></span>, and could have employed all the detective +machinery in London in a search for Susan Tredethlyn, <span lang="la"><i>alias</i></span> +Susan Lesley, had they so chosen; but your intensely respectable +<span class='pageno' id='Page_213'>213</span>family solicitor is the slowest of slow coaches, and Messrs. +Kursdale and Scardon contented themselves with the insertion +of an occasional advertisement in the second column of the +“Times” supplement, informing Susan Lesley that she might +hear of something to her advantage on applying at their office; +and further offering a liberal reward for any information respecting +the above-mentioned lady.</p> + +<p class='c008'>The advertisement did not entirely escape notice. A good +many Susan Lesleys presented themselves:—one a fat old +woman of seventy, who kept a tobacconist’s shop in the neighbourhood +of Seven Dials; another a bony and pugnacious-looking +person, with fiery red hair, and a fine South-of-Ireland +brogue, who threatened dire vengeance on the quiet lawyer +when he refused to recognize her pretensions to hear of something +to her advantage. All the Susan Lesleys were ready to +swear anything in order to establish their claims to that unknown +advantage—which might be anything from a five-pound note +to a million of money, or a dormant peerage,—but they all +broke down lamentably under Mr. Kursdale’s cross-questioning, +and he did not even trouble Francis Tredethlyn to confront the +false syrens.</p> + +<p class='c008'>So, amid Newmarket meetings and Greenwich dinners, +chicken-hazard, billiards, and unlimited loo, poor Susan’s rustic +image melted quite away; and Francis forgot the solemn +promise he had made, and the sacred duty he had set himself to +do when his Uncle Oliver’s heritage first fell into his hands. +And Francis Tredethlyn’s forgetfulness might have lasted very +long, if an accident had not awakened him to a most vivid recollection +of the past.</p> + +<p class='c008'>It was the May-time saturnalia of the turf, the Epsom week, +and Mr. Tredethlyn’s drag had been to and fro upon the dusty +roads carrying a heavy load of Bohemianism under convoy of +the indefatigable Harcourt Lowther. Francis had been rather +unlucky, and a good deal of money had changed hands after the +Derby, the larger part of it finding its way into the pockets of +Mr. Tredethlyn’s obliging friend. The Oaks day was to have +redeemed his fortunes, but the day was over, and Francis drove +home amongst the noisy ruck of landaus and waggonettes, ponderous +double dog-carts, and heavily-laden sociables, tax-carts +and costermongers’ barrows, with the outer leaves of an attenuated +cheque-book peeping from his breast-pocket, and the dim +consciousness that he had distributed hastily-scribbled cheques +to the amount of some thousands, floating confusedly in his +brain. He drove to town through the spring twilight, with +Dutch dolls in his hat, and a heavy pain in his heart. The +<span lang="fr"><i>papier mâché</i></span> noses of his companions were scarcely more false +and hollow than their gaiety.</p> + +<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_214'>214</span>Of course it would be impossible to conclude such a day without +a dinner. The sort of people amongst whom Francis Tredethlyn +lived are perpetually dining and giving dinners; only +the dinner-givers are as one to twenty of the diners; so, at some +time between nine and ten o’clock, Maude’s husband found himself +in his usual place at the head of a glittering table, in an +odorous atmosphere of asparagus soup and fried mullet, and +with a racking headache, that was intensified by every jingle +of glasses and rattle of knives and forks.</p> + +<p class='c008'>He had lost heavily, and had drunk deeply under the warm +May sunshine on the Downs. To lose cheerfully is given to +many men, but how very few have the power to lose quietly! +Francis had taken his disappointment in a rather uproarious +spirit; slapping his companions on the shoulder, and making +new engagements right and left; backing the same horses by +whose shortcomings he had just lost his money; and huskily +protesting the soundness of his own judgment in despite of the +misfortunes of to-day.</p> + +<p class='c008'>He went on talking now at the head of the dinner-table, +though the sound of his own voice by no means improved the +splitting pain in his head. He went on talking amidst a +clamour of many voices, through which one sober and silent +toady, sitting next Mr. Tredethlyn, made a vain effort to understand +his discourse. He poured forth misty vaticinations on +coming events, gave general invitations for a great dinner at +Virginia Water on the Ascot cup day, and galloped noisily +along the road to ruin in which Harcourt Lowther had set him +going. That splitting headache of his was getting worse every +minute, when <a id='tn-adjacenttheatre'></a>some one proposed an adjournment to an adjacent +theatre.</p> + +<p class='c008'>There had been counsel taken with a waiter. A West-end +waiter is no mean dramatic critic, though he never sees a play; +the opinions of playgoers percolating perpetually through his +ears must leave some residuum in the shape of knowledge. The +waiter opined that the best entertainment in London was to be +had at Drury Lane, where a melodramatic spectacle of some +celebrity was being played that evening for the last time but one.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Inspired by the waiter, Mr. Tredethlyn’s party made their +way to the theatre, bearing Mr. Tredethlyn along with them, +indifferent where he went, and carrying his headache with him +everywhere.</p> + +<p class='c008'>It was past ten o’clock, and the last scene of the great spectacle +was on. The house was full, and the audience were chiefly +of that restless and vociferous order who drop into a theatre at +half-price on great race-nights. Mr. Tredethlyn and his party +could only find standing-room at the back of the dress-circle, +and from this position Francis beheld the grand final <span lang="fr"><i>tableau</i></span>.</p> + +<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_215'>215</span>The piece was an adaptation of some great Parisian success—some +story of the Reign of Terror,—and in this last scene +the stage was crowded by a clamorous populace. Upwards of +three hundred men, women, and children were engaged in the +scene. Blouses and uniforms, the picturesque head-dresses of the +provincial peasantry, the scarlet cap of liberty, the cocked hats of +the gendarmerie,—all blended in one grand mass of movement +and colour, while the rapid action of the piece drew to its +triumphant close.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Mr. Tredethlyn did not trouble himself to wonder what the +piece had been about. He saw somebody killed—a villain it +was to be supposed, since the crowd set up a well-organized yell +of rejoicing; then there was a reconciliation, an embrace, a +young lady in short-waisted white muslin clasped to the breast +of a young man in a long-tailed blue coat and low top-boots, +adorned with many-coloured bunches of riband. Then the +band broke into the stately measure of the “Marseillaise Hymn,” +the crowd clamoured a shrill chorus, and the curtain fell.</p> + +<p class='c008'>It was while the curtain was descending very slowly to that +triumphant music that Francis Tredethlyn saw something +which startled him like the sight of a ghost.</p> + +<p class='c008'>It was a face—a woman’s face in a high Normandy cap, +looking out of the many faces in the crowd, a thin, worn, +melancholy countenance, very sad to look upon, among all those +other faces fronting the audience with a stereotyped smile.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“My God!” cried Mr. Tredethlyn, clasping his two hands +upon his hot forehead, and pushing back the rumpled hair, +“who is it? What’s the matter with me? I feel as if I’d seen +a ghost!”</p> + +<p class='c008'>There was a little piece after the melodrama, a slender little +production, popularly known as a “screaming” farce. It was +not the most strikingly original dramatic invention, and its +chief point consisted in one gentleman in tartan trousers being +perpetually mistaken for another gentleman in tartan trousers, +whole both gentlemen were alternately sitting upon bonnet-boxes +and dropping trays of crockery.</p> + +<p class='c008'>There was certainly not very much in the farce, but the +audience laughed uproariously, and Francis Tredethlyn’s party +joined in the laughter. He found himself laughing, too, as +loudly as the rest of them; but amidst all that confusion and +clamour, the wan, sad face, with two inartistic patches of rouge +upon its hollow cheeks, kept surging up ever and anon out of +the chaos of his brain, and haunting him like the face of a +ghost.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Who was it? What was it? Was it some accidental likeness? +Was it a face that he had seen and known in the past? +Alas for the steady, clear-headed soldier, who had been so +<span class='pageno' id='Page_216'>216</span>prompt to obey military orders, so strict in the performance of +duty! Francis Tredethlyn’s muddled senses refused to help +him to-night. The author of “What will he do with it?” tells +us that light wines are the most treacherous of liquors; “they +inflame the brain like fire, while melting on the palate like ice.” +Mr. Tredethlyn had been drinking a mixture of divers champagnes +and Moselles all day long, and he tried in vain to fix the +vague image which floated amidst the confusion of his brain.</p> + +<p class='c008'>He went home in the early grey of the May morning; but +not to sleep. He lay tossing from side to side, tormented by +that preternatural wakefulness which is apt to succeed a long +period of riot and excitement. The course at Epsom, the gipsy +fortune-tellers, the betting-men in white hats and green veils, +the Dutch dolls and pink calico pincushions, the dust and clamour +of the homeward drive, the jingling of broken glass, the +popping of corks, the revolutionary crowd in the drama, the +tartan trousers and broken bandboxes in the farce,—all mixed +themselves in his brain, falling to pieces, and putting themselves +together again like the images in a kaleidoscope.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Mr. Lowther, coming to see his friend at the correct visiting +hour, found Francis still in bed, in a little room behind the +library, which he had fitted up for himself at Harcourt’s instigation, +as a bedroom and dressing-room, a kind of refuge to which +he might betake himself when he was unfit to encounter the +calm gaze of Maude’s clear blue eyes fixed upon him in sorrowful +wonder. Her manner to him had never quite recovered its +old kindness since that unlucky encounter on the stairs. She +was still kind to him; but he could see that it was by an effort +only that she retained anything of her old friendliness. He could +see this, and the knowledge of it galled him to the quick. Harcourt +Lowther’s work was more than half done by this time. +He had no longer any difficulty in beguiling Francis abroad, for +the Cornishman no longer cared to remain at home.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Mr. Tredethlyn had not very long fallen into a feverish +slumber after long hours of wakeful weariness, when his friend +called upon him. Harcourt seated himself by the side of the +narrow brass bedstead, and stared contemplatively at the +sleeper, while he spoke to the valet who had admitted him to +the darkened chamber.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“You can let your master sleep till four o’clock, Jervois,” he +said. “At four give him some soda and brandy. He has an appointment +with me at half-past five. Take care that he doesn’t +oversleep himself. I’ll write him a line by way of reminder.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>He drew a little writing-table towards him, and wrote a few +lines on a sheet of note-paper:</p> + +<p class='c015'>“<span class='sc'>Dear Tredethlyn</span>,—Remember your engagement at my +<span class='pageno' id='Page_217'>217</span>quarters; 5.30 sharp. You had better bring the mail phaeton, +and can give me a lift to the S. and G.</p> + +<div class='c011'><span class="closing">“Yours faithfully,</span></div> + +<div class='c011'>“H. L.”</div> + +<p class='c014'>He slipped his note into an envelope, and dipped his pen into +the ink; but before writing the address, he stopped suddenly, +and tore the note into fragments.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“<em>She</em> might see it!” he muttered, thoughtfully, “and that +might show her the nature of my cards. The only wise man +is the one who can do his work without that most dangerous of +all machinery—pen and paper. Poor Francis! he looks a little +worn.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Mr. Lowther looked down upon the sleeper with the most +benign expression. He had no dislike whatever to the simple +Cornishman; he had only—his own plans.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“These fellows who come suddenly into a large fortune are +sure to kill themselves before they have done spending it,” he +murmured, complacently. “Jervois,” he said, as he went out, +“you won’t forget your master’s engagement. He’d better +drive up to my place in the mail phaeton.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Mr. Lowther’s “place” was the same lodging which he had +taken for himself when he first returned to England. He was +an adventurer; but he was not a vulgar adventurer, and in all +his dealings with Francis Tredethlyn he had not sponged upon +that gentleman’s purse for so much as a five-pound note. He +had his plans; but they were not the plans of a man who lives +from hand to mouth. He won a good deal of his friend’s +money; but he never cheated Francis out of a sixpence. His +sole advantage was that which must always accompany skill +and experience as opposed to ignorance and inexperience. In +the meanwhile, Harcourt Lowther lived as best he might on +his winnings and a small allowance made him by his mother.</p> + +<p class='c008'>The Lowthers were great people in their way, and Harcourt +had admission to some of the best houses in London. He was +very well received in that circle in which Maude Tredethlyn +had taken her place, and contrived somehow or other to be +present for an hour or so at almost all of the parties in which +she appeared; though to break away from the haunts of Bohemianism +to drop into politer life, and then return to Bohemia in +the same evening, was almost as difficult as a harlequin’s jump +in a pantomime. Harcourt Lowther did this, however, and did +it very often; and Maude Tredethlyn, enjoying all the privileges +of a matron, found herself sometimes standing amongst the +statues and exotics on a crowded staircase in Tyburnia, talking +with Harcourt Lowther almost as familiarly as they had talked +in the old summer evenings by the quiet river.</p> + +<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_218'>218</span>Sometimes, looking back upon such a meeting, Maude felt +inclined to be angry with Mr. Lowther for having taken something +of the old tone; but could she blame him for the lowered +accents of his voice, the subdued light in his eyes, the unconscious +tenderness into which he was betrayed in those public +meetings, when she remembered how nobly he kept aloof from +her in her home? Never yet had he presumed upon his intimacy +with the husband in order to intrude himself on the +presence of the wife. What harm or danger, then, if, in +crowded assemblages, he surmounted all manner of small difficulties +in order to make his way to her side? What could it +matter if he lingered just a little longer than others, contriving +all sorts of excuses for delay? It is rather a pleasant thing +for a frivolous young married woman, serene in the consciousness +of her own integrity, to know that a man’s heart is breaking +for her in a gentlemanly way. A word too much, a tone, a +look, and Maude would have taken alarm, and fled from her old +admirer as from the venomous fangs of some deadly reptile; +but Harcourt Lowther knew better than to speak that word. +He had his own plans, and he was carrying them out in his +own way: neither by word nor look had he ever yet offended +Maude Tredethlyn; but now, when he tried to cut a path for +himself through the crowd about her, he found less difficulty in +the progress. People began to make way for him, and it was +considered a settled thing that he should be found somewhere +near her. He had not offended her; he had only—compromised +her.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Francis awoke before the hour at which his servant had been +told to call him. The valet’s place was almost a sinecure, for +the Cornishman still retained, of his old nature, the simple independent +habits of a man who can wait upon himself. He +got up at four o’clock, and had nearly completed his toilet, when +the servant brought the soda and brandy prescribed by Harcourt +Lowther.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“And if you please, sir, you were to be so good as to remember +an appointment with Mr. Lowther at half-past five, and was +to please to drive the mail phaeton,” said the valet, while his +master drank the revivifying beverage.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Very good,” muttered Mr. Tredethlyn, with something like +a groan; “you may go and order the phaeton for five o’clock. +Is Mrs. Tredethlyn at home?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“No, sir.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>The man departed, and Francis finished dressing. He had +ten minutes to spare after putting on his outer coat, and he +sat down to look at the newspaper which lay ready cut on +his writing-table. He took up the “Times,” but only stared +<span class='pageno' id='Page_219'>219</span>vacantly at the advertisement sheet. His head still ached, in +spite of a shower-bath and a vigorous application of hard hair-brushes; +but his intellect was a good deal clearer than it had +been before he dressed.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Suddenly, out of the advertisement sheet, vivid as the figure +of Banquo at Macbeth’s uncomfortable supper-party, there +arose before him a face—a wan, faded face—in a white muslin-cap.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Great Heaven!” he cried; “I didn’t know her!”</p> + +<p class='c008'>The ghost that he had seen upon the previous night was the +ghost of the woman he had so long been looking for—his cousin +Susan.</p> + +</div> + +<div class='pbb'> + <hr class='pb c001'> +</div> +<div> + +<div> + <h2 class='c003'><a id='chapter-XXVIII'></a>CHAPTER XXVIII.<br> <br><span class='fss'>“OH, MY AMY! MINE NO MORE!”</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>Francis Tredethlyn drove his friend down to Richmond at +a rattling pace, but he scarcely spoke half-a-dozen words +throughout the journey; and Harcourt Lowther, keeping the +watchful eye of the master upon his pupil, saw that something +was amiss.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Now although the Cornishman’s guide and Mentor had his +plans, very definite plans, as clearly drawn out as the great +Duke’s arrangements for Waterloo,—which wondrous victory +was <em>not</em> quite the lucky accident our neighbours imagine it to +have been; yet he was far too wise a diplomatist to ignore the +sublime opportunities which chance sometimes throws in the +way of a schemer, shattering the complicated machinery so +dexterously and patiently put together, and opening a new and +easy way to success over the ruins of the old road.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Mr. Lowther was quite prepared to make good use of any +accident which seemed likely to help him. He was like a +chess-player who takes his place before the board with a perfect +plan of action mapped out in his mind, and who may see +his entire scheme overthrown, his most brilliant arrangements +stultified by the first move of his adversary, but who will win +the game nevertheless, after his enemy’s fashion, if not after +his own, being no enthusiastic advocate of pet theories, but +only a man of the world, resolutely bent on success. Upon +this particular afternoon Harcourt saw that something had +gone amiss with his friend, and he was bent on discovering +what the something was. With this view he had resort to +that imaginary instrument which his companions of Bohemia +called the “pump-handle;” but on letting down a moral plummet +into the depths of Mr. Tredethlyn’s mind, he found himself +in much deeper water than usual, and quite unable to reach the +bottom.</p> + +<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_220'>220</span>“If he has secrets from me, he’ll throw all my machinery out +of gear,” mused Mr. Lowther; “and yet I don’t quite know +that—a secret might be worked into something <em>with her</em>. What +a wonderful creature that Iago was, by the bye! especially +when one considers that he took all that trouble for no better +motive than jealous twinges about a wife whom he treated like a +dog, and an envious grudge of Cassio’s advancement. Aha, my +divine Williams, that’s the only flaw in your <span lang="la"><i>magnum opus</i></span>; +your motive power isn’t equal to your ponderous machinery! +Now if Othello had been the owner of thirty thousand a year +and a beautiful wife whom Iago loved, there might have been +some reason for the exhibition of a little Italian diplomacy. +But revenge! Bah! The luxury of a maniac. The pet wickedness +of a woman. Your novelist cannot write a story, your +playwright cannot devise a drama, but he must have recourse +to revenge to keep the action going. Yet, in the history of men +how small and pitiful a part the heroic passion plays! A Cromwell +condemns a Charles Stuart to the scaffold. For revenge? +No; simply because Charles is in his way. A Robespierre +drowns his country in the blood of her sons; and yet I doubt if +he bore a hearty grudge against one of his victims—a little +political jealousy, perhaps, at the worst. A Richelieu extinguishes +the haughty <span lang="fr"><i>noblesse</i></span> of France—out of revenge? No; +but the <span lang="fr"><i>noblesse</i></span> interfere with the schemes of my Lord Cardinal. +A Countess of Essex connives at the poisoning of her husband: +revenge? not a bit of it, but because she wants to marry some +one else; and poor Sir Thomas Overbury must die, not that +any one hates the man, but the creature is so tiresome. And +Arabella Stuart pines in prison; and the heads of the regicides +rot on Temple Bar; and Charles, the merry monarch, the pet of +the painters and romancers, the man whose sins have been dealt +with so lightly that we are apt to mistake them for virtues—can +be as hard as a Nero when it suits him that the patriots Russell +and Sidney shall perish in their prime; and James II. sends +young Monmouth to the block. Why? Is revenge the impulse +that stirs these men’s hearts? Not at all. Not man’s passionate +hatred of his neighbour, but man’s devoted love of himself is +the motive power that moves the headsman’s arms, and bids +the swooping axe descend upon fair young necks from which the +lovelocks have been newly shorn. Revenge? Pshaw! Has it +a feather’s weight in the balance of history? In all the story +of our land, what has revenge to answer for? A semi-mythical +Rosamond poisoned in her bower—an Essex condemned in passionate +haste, and lamented in dreary leisure by the Queen who +loved him—a Konigsmark’s handsome face trampled upon by a +German tigress.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>With such random reflections as these Mr. Lowther beguiled +<span class='pageno' id='Page_221'>221</span>the silence of the drive to Richmond. During dinner and +throughout the evening he watched his friend closely; but all +the fascinations of Bohemia were powerless to arouse Francis +Tredethlyn from the thoughtful mood. Indeed, the Bohemians +had a charming faculty for enjoying themselves amongst themselves +without any reference to the host and paymaster, who +was generally looked at rather in the light of a bore and an +intruder—the death’s head at the banquet. Some of Mr. Tredethlyn’s +new friends had christened him the Necessary Evil; +and to-night, while he sat moodily brooding over the story of +his cousin, pretty lips made faces at the company over his +shoulder; and one lovely Bohemian, more playful than the rest, +amused herself and her acquaintances by filling the pockets of +his dress-coat with the empty shells of the lobsters, and the +corks of the champagne.</p> + +<p class='c008'>For the rest, what did it matter in what dreary regions his +mind wandered, so long as he was there to write a cheque for +the bill? Only one pair of eyes looked at him with any show +of interest; and those eyes watched him as the serpent watches +the bird; with as deadly a purpose, with as quiet a gaze. But, +watch him as closely as he would to-night, there was something +in Francis Tredethlyn’s mind which Harcourt Lowther could +not read quite as easily as a page in an open book, and as it was +his habit to read most things relating to the Cornishman.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“What does it matter?” thought Mr. Lowther, abandoning +himself to reflection again during the homeward drive; “let +him keep his secret from me if he likes, and I’ll use it for my +own benefit when he plays against me. He is my dummy, and +he plays <em>my</em> game. When he leads a suit of his own choosing, +I am ready on his right hand with a cluster of small trumps. +Play as he will, he can scarcely throw me out. What does it +matter <em>how</em> the game is won, so long as one scores the odd +trick?”</p> + +<p class='c007'>The day after this Richmond dinner was Sunday; but even +that circumstance did not prevent Francis Tredethlyn from +taking preliminary steps towards finding the missing girl whom +he fancied quite within his reach now; since it seemed certain +that the face he had seen on the stage of Drury Lane was the +face of his uncle Oliver’s daughter, and no other. It had been +his habit until very lately to accompany Maude every Sunday +morning to a certain fashionable place of worship not very far +from Sloane Street, where miserable sinners lamented their +iniquities and their wretchedness amid the subdued rustling of +silk at a guinea a yard, and in an atmosphere that was odorous +with Jockey Club and Ess Bouquet. But Star-and-Garter +dinners, and evenings “finished” in mysterious localities at the +<span class='pageno' id='Page_222'>222</span>West-end, are by no means conducive to early rising; and now +the Sabbath bells that Mr. Tredethlyn had been wont to hear +ringing blithely in the morning air while he breakfasted with +his wife, were apt to mingle with his feverish morning dreams, +and to transform themselves into the shrill peal of an alarm-bell +summoning the fireman’s succour for perishing wretches in some +blazing habitation, or the bell on board a boat leaving a pier—a +boat which the dreamer was—oh, so eagerly—striving to +reach, but never, never could; for just as his foot was going +to step upon the deck, the plank on which he trod would give +way and tilt him into the waking world; with a raging headache, +perhaps, and a dull ceaseless pain in his breast, which he +scarcely cared to acknowledge by its ugly name of Remorse.</p> + +<p class='c008'>So now Mr. Tredethlyn was apt to spend the earlier part of +his Sunday morning in fitful slumbers, and the later portion +of his day in the society of his devoted friends. Unhappily +Mephistopheles has such a knack of making himself useful, that +after once enjoying his society, Faust is apt to find life very +dreary without that fatal companionship. Drifted away from +the simple life that was natural to him, Francis was only a +helpless creature, with all the dismal blank of existence to be +filled up somehow or other.</p> + +<p class='c008'>But upon this particular Sunday he had a purpose of his own, +and the honest energy with which he set about the achievement +of that purpose transformed him into a new being.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Harcourt Lowther might have felt a little twinge of alarm +had he seen his pupil, as he walked away from the stuccoed +district, with the old light in his eyes, the old lightness in his +firm tread. Francis forgot that he had an empty life to drag +out, and an idolized wife who did <em>not</em> love him. He forgot +everything, except that he had to redeem his half-forgotten vow, +to fulfil a long-neglected duty.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“My uncle Oliver’s money brought <em>her</em> peace of mind, and +prosperity for the father she loves so dearly,” thought Mr. +Tredethlyn. “Let me remember that, when I think of his disinherited +daughter.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Crumpled in one of the pockets of his overcoat, Francis had +found the programme of the performances at Drury Lane, and +in the long list of names crowded together at the bottom of the +programme, he discovered half hidden amongst Percies and Vavasours, +Vane Tempests and Leveson Gowers, and such appellations +as the <span lang="fr"><i>corps de ballet</i></span> modestly chooses for its own—the +vulgar name of Turner. He concluded, therefore, that his cousin +had called herself Turner at the Drury Lane Theatre, as well as +at Coltonslough, and he did not anticipate much difficulty in +finding her. The search after any information upon theatrical +matters might have seemed rather a hopeless thing on a Sunday, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_223'>223</span>but Francis Tredethlyn’s energy was not to be damped by small +difficulties.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I have wasted too many hours already,” he thought; “where +my poor lost girl is concerned, every moment of delay seems a +new wrong.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>He took a hansom and drove straight to the theatre; but +Drury Lane on a Sunday seems an utterly hopeless and impracticable +place. The stage-door was closed. The box-office +might have been the tomb of the Pharaohs for any appearance +of life within its portals. Happily Francis was not to be disheartened. +He walked up and down the street until the clocks +struck one, and a dense crowd began to pour out of a chapel +in Crown Court, and disgorge itself into Little Russell Street. +Then, when the doors of the public-houses were opened, he +entered a tavern nearly opposite the stage-door, and made his +inquiries.</p> + +<p class='c008'>The barmaid at the tavern was able to tell him where the +stage-doorkeeper lived, but she was not able to give him any +information as to the habitations of the ladies of the <span lang="fr"><i>ballet</i></span>.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Most of them live out at Camberwell, or up Islington way; +though how they manage it, poor things, walking backwards +and forwards through all sorts of weather, is more than I can +tell. They send over here when there’s a long rehearsal for +their half pint of porter and their sandwich, and that’s about +all the dinner they get on such days, I dare say.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Thus, discursively, the barmaid. Francis left her, and made +his way to the adjacent court in which the doorkeeper was to be +found in his private capacity. That gentleman was in the +midst of a very greasy dinner and in the bosom of his family +when Mr. Tredethlyn intruded on him, and was at first inclined +to resent the interruption.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I don’t carry two hundred and forty-nine addresses in my +blessed head,” he remarked, in an injured tone; “which our +company at the beginning of this season was over two hundred +and forty-nine; and I don’t care to be hunted upon Sundays +when I’m eating of my dinner, for a pack of ballet-girls. I +don’t get paid for <em>that</em> when I take my salary. If any young +swell wants to find out one of our ladies’ address, to leave ’em +a bokay, or to take a ticket for their benefit or such-like, I +should think they could find it out of a week-day, and not come +chivying of a man over his Sunday wittles.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>But a judiciously-administered half-sovereign had a very +soothing effect upon the mind and manners of the doorkeeper. +There are so few things in a small way which cannot be done +with half-a-sovereign. The man laid down his knife and fork, +and applied himself to serious reflection, while his wife and +<span class='pageno' id='Page_224'>224</span>family suspended their operations to stare admiringly at the +fashionably-dressed intruder.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Let me see,” said the doorkeeper, scraping his stubbly chin +as he mused, “there’s such a many of ’em, that I may sit here +trying to remember where this here Miss Turner lives till doomsday, +and not be no wiser. I’ll tell you what I’ll do with you, +sir; I’ve got the addresses of every member of the company in +my book over the way. <a id='tn-missturners'></a>I’ll slip over and get Miss Turner’s +direction, while you wait here if you like.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Over the way” was Drury Lane Theatre. The doorkeeper +took some ponderous keys from a nail over the mantel-piece, and +put on his hat. Francis Tredethlyn went with him.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Turner,” said the man; “Turner? A pale-faced young +woman, ain’t she? looks as if she’d gone through no end of +trouble. She’s only an extra, took on for this here great piece +that’s just done with.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“An extra?” inquired Francis.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Yes; a sort of supernume’ry; not a reg’lar ballet-girl,—can’t +dance, or anything of that sort, only fit to go on in +crowds, and so on. I remember her, a very quiet, civil-spoken +young person.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>The address was soon found; it was at a house in Brydges +Street. Francis left the doorkeeper with his heart beating +tumultuously; his face pale with emotion that was half joy, +half pain—joy at finding her at last, when hope had almost +died out into forgetfulness—pain at finding her thus. Ah, yes! +it was very painful to remember the innocent rosy face peeping +out of a dimity bonnet, and to know that sorrow had set its undefaceable +hand upon that rustic beauty, and that the face he +remembered had no more a place upon this earth.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Miss Turner and Miss Willoughby live together over an +eating-house in Brydges Street,” the doorkeeper had told +Francis, with the further information that he was to pull the +top bell twice. Mr. Tredethlyn found the eating-house, which +was ostensibly closed; but the door of the shop was ajar, and +the atmosphere about and around it seemed greasy with the +steam of suet-pudding and boiled meat. The bell which Francis +rang was answered by a careworn-looking woman of doubtful +age, who had an air of faded gentility, a flimsy smartness of +apparel, which was more plainly demonstrative of poverty than +the shabbiest garments that ever hung together loosely upon +the figure of a slattern.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Miss Turner lives here, I believe?” Francis said eagerly; +“I wish to see her, if you please.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Miss Turner <em>did</em> live here,” the woman answered, “but she +has left.”</p> + +<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_225'>225</span>“Left? Why I saw her at the theatre only the night before +last, and the doorkeeper has just directed me here.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Miss Turner’s engagement expired last night, sir, and she +left London this morning.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“This morning, only this morning! But of course you can +tell me where she has gone? I am her first-cousin, her only +surviving relative. If I had known that there was the least +chance of her leaving London, I should have tried to find her +last night. Will you be good enough to direct me to her?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>The woman shook her head.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I don’t know where Miss Turner has gone,” she said.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Francis Tredethlyn’s face whitened to the very lips.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“My God!” he exclaimed, “is there a fatality in this business? +am I never to find her?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Then addressing himself to the woman with sudden earnestness, +he said,—</p> + +<p class='c008'>“For pity’s sake, if you can help me in my difficulty, do so +with all your might. You do not know how much depends on +my finding her. I scarcely think I should say too much, if I +were to tell you that it is a matter of life and death; for I saw +my cousin’s face the night before last, and it looked to me like +a face that is fading away from this earth. You have been +told, perhaps, to give no one her address; but she did not think +her cousin Francis would come to ask for it. Pray trust me +and believe in me; I am the only friend that poor girl has in +all this world.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I have told you the truth, sir,” answered the woman, +quietly; “I do not know where Miss Turner has gone. Anything +I can tell you about her, I shall be happy to tell,” she +added, as if answering the look of blank despair in Francis +Tredethlyn’s face; “but it is very little. Will you step upstairs +to my room? It is only a humble place, but it will be +quieter there than here.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>This could scarcely fail to be true; for during the very brief +interview which had just taken place, Francis had been brushed +against and flouted some half-dozen times by young persons +with jugs and door-keys, going to and from a neighbouring +public-house. It was the popular dinner-hour in Drury Lane, +and four separate floors, with their minor divisions of backs and +fronts, were more or less engaged in the business of dining.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Francis followed his cousin’s late associate, Miss Willoughby, +up three steps of rather dingy stairs, upon which little colonies +of children had established themselves here and there with their +toys. One young gentleman of tender years was trying to fly +a kite in the well of the staircase, with a persevering disregard +of atmospheric difficulties and the heads of the passers below; +while a young lady, belonging to an adjacent tribe of settlers, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_226'>226</span>took her doll for an airing in a lobster-shell, drawn by a string +which wound itself about Mr. Tredethlyn’s legs, and had to be +unwound like a bandage. Occasional skirmishers from distant +settlements came sliding down the banisters—which, compared +to the stairs, were as the modern railroad to the ancient highway—assailing +peaceable families with the war-whoop of defiance: +and the cries of “Shan’t,”—“Do it again, then, there!”—“Wouldn’t +you just like to, now?”—“Won’t I tell my +mother, that’s all?”—“Tell-tale-tit, yah!”—resounded in a delightful +confusion of voices from the first floor to the attics.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Miss Willoughby conducted Francis to a back room upon the +third floor—a dark gloomy little room, hung with chocolate-and-drab +paper, but enlivened by a little gallery of theatrical +photographs, and some engraved portraits cut out of Tallis’s +“Shakespeare,” neatly arranged over the mantel-piece.</p> + +<p class='c008'>It was not very difficult to perceive that the anomalous piece +of furniture, which was too vividly brown for mahogany, too +elaborately grained for nature, and which was not quite a chest +of drawers, nor altogether a wardrobe, was neither more nor +less than a member of the mysterious family of press-bedsteads. +It was not difficult to perceive that industrious poverty and simple +independence reigned in that three-pair back, whose pitiful +goods and chattels, and worthless scraps of ornament, were +arranged with as exquisite a neatness as might pervade the +chambers of a bachelor in the Albany, or a gandin of the Faubourg +St. Honoré.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I shall miss your cousin very much,” said Miss Willoughby; +“we got on so nicely together.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“She lived with you? Here?” asked Francis.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Yes; we shared this apartment. It made the rent come +lighter for both of us, and apartments are so dear in London; +and of course it was the same advantage in coals—not that we +wanted many for our little bit of cooking, but one can’t even +boil a kettle without a fire; and saveloys and sandwiches are +apt to pall upon one after a long continuance; so, having Miss +Turner to live with me made it altogether come much pleasanter; +besides which, we were always the best of friends.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Mr. Tredethlyn was slow to answer. He was looking round +the room, and out at the leaden ball floating on the surface of +a dingy leaden cistern visible athwart some scarecrow geraniums, +which seemed as if they had been put upon a short +allowance of mould. Everything in the place, from the scrimped +morsel of worn carpet, which only made an oasis of Kidderminster +in a dreary desert of boards, to the handful of red +coals that burned brightly between massive embankments of +brick, bore mute evidence to the poverty which struggles and +endures. An open cupboard stared Francis in the face, and he +<span class='pageno' id='Page_227'>227</span>saw, oh, such a pitiful morsel of sickly-complexioned ham lying +cheek by jowl with the fag-end of a stale half-quartern loaf. +He looked at these things, and remembered the house in which +he lived, the reckless extravagance that pervaded all his life.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Does a curse cling to the gold of a miser?” he thought; +“and is my uncle Oliver’s child never to derive any advantage +from the wealth her father scraped and pinched together, at the +cost of everything that makes life endurable?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>He roused himself from his brief reverie to appeal once more +to the elderly ballet-girl, who had seated herself by the little +Pembroke table, on which lay a newspaper evidently borrowed +from the establishment below, and transformed into a kind of +parchment by the action of grease.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Give me what information you can about my cousin,” he +said, imploringly; “and if you will accept any little present +from me in acknowledgment of your kindness, I will send you +a cheque to-morrow morning, and you shall purchase what you +please as a memorial of your friendship for my poor little +Susy.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>A faint flush kindled in Miss Willoughby’s pale cheeks. A +cheque! Oh, bright representative of an El Dorado, only to +be thought of in some happy dream. Clara Willoughby—otherwise +Mary Anne Jones—had not seen such a thing as a cheque +since the happy time in which she had been columbine at the +tumble-down little theatre in a garrison town, and the colonel +himself had taken five pounds’ worth of tickets for her benefit.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“You are very kind,” she said; “but I don’t want any payment +for the little help I can give you. Miss Turner is a very +quiet young person; and, though we were so friendly together, +she never told me anything of her history; and when she went +away this morning, having only been taken on as an extra, and +her engagement expiring last night, she said, ‘You’ve been very +good to me, Clara, and I shall always remember you kindly; +and if things go well with me, I’ll write and tell you where I +am. You mustn’t be offended because I don’t tell you where I +am going. I don’t quite know myself. I have not made up my +mind yet; there’s a place I want to go to, and friends I want +to see; but <a id='tn-bringmymind'></a>I don’t think I shall ever bring my mind to go +there, or to see them.’”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I think I understand her,” said Francis. “I think the +place she means is her old home. If she goes there, I shall +hear of her immediately; but if—if she should not be wise +enough to return to the friends who would be so glad to shelter +her⸺. Did she ever speak of her home, or of her cousin +Francis Tredethlyn?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Never! She seemed to have some settled grief upon her +mind; and having known trouble myself, I know how hard it +<span class='pageno' id='Page_228'>228</span>is to be worried by strangers’ questions and strangers’ pity, +even when it’s meant ever so kindly; so I never asked her to +tell me so much as one word about her former life.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“But how did she come to be at the theatre with you? I +should think of all ways of earning a living, that must be the +very last that would occur to my cousin Susan.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“That’s very true,” answered Miss Willoughby; “but it +doesn’t take a woman long to come to the last way by which +she can earn her bread—the ways are not so many. I can tell +you how your cousin came to be at Drury Lane, for I was the +means of getting her engaged; and it all came about, as one +may say, quite promiscuously. I suppose you know that Susan +Turner is a married woman?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Yes, I do know of her unhappy marriage.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“She called herself Miss Turner in the bills, because, you see, +in the theatrical profession a single female is always considered +more attractive; though why it should be so,—unless with +regard to boys in jackets, in the Christmas holidays, who, being +apt to fall in love with the columbine, might find it damping to +their spirits to know she was the mother of a family,—I really +can’t imagine. However, Susan was Miss Turner in the bills, +and I am Miss Willoughby for the same reason, although I’ve +been thirteen years a widow come next boxing-night. Perhaps +you may remember the sprite who was killed by a fall off a +flying bridge in ‘Harlequin Buttercup, or the Maiden all Forlorn; +the Fairy Queen of the Daisies, and the Cow with the +Crumpled Horn,’ twelve years ago last Christmas? Not being +professional yourself, you mayn’t happen to remember the circumstance; +but Signor Wilsonio was my husband. He was +<em>not</em> an Italian, and his name in private life was Wilson. We +had been married two years, and he left me with a little boy +just six months old.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Francis listened very respectfully to this fragment of family +history, but he chafed under its infliction nevertheless.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“If you will tell me how you came to⸺” he began.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I am just coming to that,” answered Miss Willoughby, with +dignity. “My poor husband, not having anything to leave me +except a complimentary benefit, which the manager of the +theatre allowed me on account of my bereavement, I was +obliged, of course, to continue in the profession; and oh, sir! +nobody that hasn’t gone through it can tell the pain of having +to change your widow’s weeds for white muslin and spangles, +and put away your baby from your breast to go and slap +cheesemongers’ shops into furnished lodgings with a harlequin’s +wand. As soon as I got over the dreadful kind of numbness +that came upon me in the first of my troubles, I looked out for +some one who would take care of the child; for I need not tell +<span class='pageno' id='Page_229'>229</span>you that you can’t leave an infant-in-arms in unfurnished +lodgings <em>without</em> attendance, when you get black looks from +your landlady if you so much as ask for your fire to be poked +once in an evening in a friendly way, and much less to look +after a child, which is apt to be trying to the best of tempers. +Well, sir, inquiring of one and another, I heard of a very +respectable elderly person who had seen better days—and it does +seem odd, but people connected with bringing up children by +hand always have seen better days. The elderly person lived +down Chelsea way, close to the water, which was considered +healthy, and next door but one to a cowkeeper—also considered +healthy, especially if predisposed to consumption.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“If you would only⸺” murmured Francis, despondently.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Which I am just coming to,” answered the <span lang="fr"><i>ci-devant</i></span> columbine, +again with dignity. “The long and short of it is, I took +my baby to the respectable elderly person at Chelsea, and there +he’s been ever since, at seven shillings a week, which is a hard +struggle sometimes now, though light enough when I was engaged +as columbine; but dancing has made such progress, and +unless you can take flying leaps from one side of the stage to +the other, a manager won’t look at you.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“But with regard to⸺”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Which I am about to explain,” continued Miss Willoughby, +with unshaken calmness. “It was at the respectable elderly +person’s that I first met Miss Turner; for my darling baby +having learnt to call his nurse Nungey, and taking so to her, +and not taking to anybody else, and she so attached to him, +that she froze my very blood by talking of Battersea Bridge in +quite a meaning way, when I spoke of taking him away. +Owing to this and one circumstance and another, Harry has +stopped at Chelsea till he’s quite a big boy. So, of course, I +very often go to see him—not that he takes to me so much as +he ought to do, being so wrapped up in his Nungey. And one +day, about three years ago, I went there quite promiscuous, and +found Harry walking up and down before the door with a baby +in his arms; and the nurse told me that she’d put an advertisement +in the paper, and the very day it was inserted a lady came +to her—a sweet-looking young creature, she said—and left this +baby, which might be going on for twelve months old. Well, +the long and the short of it is, that this was your cousin Susan’s +baby; and going there off and on, I saw a good deal of your cousin. +But see her as much as you would, she was so quiet and so reserved, +that you never got anything like intimate with her. At first she +was dressed like a lady, and she had a pretty little gold watch +and chain, and many things that had cost money; but, little by +little, all these disappeared, and she seemed to get very poor. +One day, when I was there, it came out somehow that she was +<span class='pageno' id='Page_230'>230</span>doing plain needlework for one of the great cheap outfitters’ +houses in the City, and what a hard life it was, and, worse than +hard—uncertain; so then, knowing there were ‘extras’ wanted +for the new piece, I proposed to her that with my help she +should try and get engaged. It would be much lighter work +than the plain sewing, and better pay. Well, at first she was +very much against it, but after a deal of persuasion she gave +way, and I got her the engagement. That was full five months +ago; for the piece had a long run. She had been lodging in one +room at Chelsea until then, for the sake of being near her boy, +and she left that lodging to come and share mine.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“And do you think she will go back to the old lodging?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I doubt it. She seemed so uncertain, that I really don’t +think she’d made up her mind where to go.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“But she is likely to have gone straight to her child!” cried +Francis. “Will you give me the address of the old woman at +Chelsea? Oh, I thank you so much for giving me this clue. +I <em>must</em> find my poor girl now!”</p> + +<p class='c008'>The sprite’s widow opened a little portfolio and wrote an +address on a scrap of paper, while Francis stood by eager to +take it from her.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Do you know that there has been an advertisement appealing +to my cousin, in the columns of the “Times” newspaper, a +hundred times within the last two years?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Dear! dear!” murmured the ballet-dancer; “and she going +through so much, with rich friends looking for her all the time. +But, you see, poor people can’t afford to take in a newspaper; +and there might be only a threepenny paper standing between a +man and a million of money, and he none the wiser.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>She handed Francis the address, which was a very long one. +And then she gave him divers verbal directions, the gist of +which was, that he was to find a certain public-house called +“The Man in the Moon,” and was then to inquire of anybody +for a certain street, and was to go a little way farther and +inquire again, thus accomplishing his journey by easy stages +and frequent inquiries.</p> + +<p class='c008'>But Francis was much too full of hope to be dashed by any +small difficulties. He grasped the dancer’s hand in his heartiest +way, and left Brydges Street in impetuous haste. The hansom +cabman, who met him at the corner of Russell Street, and +drove him thence to “The Man in the Moon,” was a lucky +individual, and went home rejoicing to the bosom of his family. +But after dismissing the cabman, Francis had to thread his way +through intricacies which would have been maddening in a +hansom cab, and were only to be overcome by repeated inquiries +and frequent reference to Miss Willoughby’s written +direction.</p> + +<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_231'>231</span>At last, however, while the bells were still ringing for afternoon +service, Francis Tredethlyn found the place, which was a +damp little street without any thoroughfare, called Pollard’s +Row. Pollard’s Row, with the summer sunlight on it, and +given up entirely to the occupation of one mongrel dog, which +was lying with his head upon his forepaws, snapping at imaginary +flies, was a dreary place to contemplate; Francis +Tredethlyn troubled himself very little about the aspect of the +neighbourhood. He walked rapidly past the little row of houses +until he came to No. 17, which was occupied by the respectable +elderly person, otherwise Mrs. Clinnock.</p> + +<p class='c008'>The elderly person made some faint show of a commercial +character in the shape of three very green pickle-bottles containing +confectionery, all more or less melted out of its normal +mould by long exposure to the sun, and a few gingerbread +figures of weird and ghastly outline, supposed to represent the +human form. A tattered chintz curtain hung upon a limp +string, and made a background to these wares. Looking across +this curtain Francis Tredethlyn saw a woman sitting in the +ruddy glow of the fire, with a child in her lap, and knew by the +beating of his heart that he had found his cousin Susan.</p> + +<p class='c008'>The door of No. 17 stood ajar. Francis pushed it open and +went into the passage. Three steps brought him to the door of +the little room, which was a compound of shop and parlour, with +a slight flavour of bedroom. A woman—a girlish creature +still, but pale and worn-looking—was sitting in a low nursing +chair, with a child of four years old in her arms. Alas for the +handiwork of Sorrow, the destroyer! The soft brown hair, the +tender hazel eyes, alone remained of the rustic beauty which +Francis Tredethlyn remembered smiling at him upon the moorlands +of his native county.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Ah, how much of his youth came suddenly back upon the +Cornishman in that moment of recognition! His mother’s face +watching him as he left the dear old homestead in the early +summer morning to go to the dame-school; happy haymakings +on his father’s farm in the days when haymaking and harvest +time were two Arcadian festivals, and not nervous crises in the +life of a hardworking farmer, who may or may not be able to +pay his rent. His childhood came back to him with all its +unconscious happiness, and he fell on his knees by his cousin’s +chair in a tumult of emotion.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Susy, my darling, my pet! at last, at last I have found +you!”</p> + +<p class='c008'>The boy slid from his mother’s arms, frightened by this +tumultuous stranger. Susan rose pale and trembling, and +shrank away with her hands spread before her face, as if even +now she would have hidden herself from her cousin.</p> + +<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_232'>232</span>“Oh, Francis,” she cried, “don’t come near me—don’t look +at me! Oh, Heaven have pity on me! I have so prayed that +none who ever knew me in my childhood should see me now.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“But, my darling, why, why should you hide yourself from +those who love you so fondly?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>She made him no direct answer, but covered her face with her +hands and sobbed aloud—</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Oh, my shame—my shame! Who will believe me when +my father would not?”</p> + +</div> + +<div class='pbb'> + <hr class='pb c001'> +</div> +<div> + +<div> + <h2 class='c003'><a id='chapter-XXIX'></a>CHAPTER XXIX.<br> <br><span class='fss'>ENTANGLEMENTS IN THE WEB.</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>Harcourt Lowther, calling at the stuccoed mansion in time +for Mrs. Tredethlyn’s afternoon tea, found a dark and dashing +young lady comfortably established in a luxurious amber damask +nest against a background of amber curtain, whose glowing +tints were extremely becoming to the young lady’s clear +complexion. The two ladies were quite alone, though Maude +declared gaily that she had had crowds of people that afternoon.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“You generally come so late, Mr. Lowther,” she said. +“Those were the Dudley Boltons whom you met going out—nice +people, fresh from the wolds of Yorkshire, quite new to +town, people who come once in ten years or so, when there’s an +International Exhibition, or something of that kind. Isn’t it +strange that people <em>can</em> be so civilized living in the depths of +the country—read the last novel—see the last great picture—because +you see, nowadays, great pictures jog about the country +like popular prime ministers, and if Mahomet can’t go to the +mountain in Trafalgar Square, the mountain goes to meet +Mahomet in his provincial town. But I want to introduce you +to Miss Desmond, the daughter of the late Colonel Desmond, +papa’s oldest friend. Julia dear, Mr. Lowther has heard me +talk of you perpetually, and you have heard a good deal of +him,”—Mrs. Tredethlyn blushed a little as she said this,—“so +I expect you to be intensely intimate immediately.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>This introduction took place towards the close of June, nearly +a month after the Oaks day; and during the time that had +elapsed since that event, Harcourt Lowther, in his character of +Mephistopheles, had found Faust what is popularly called a +very troublesome customer. Francis Tredethlyn had a secret, +and so far it had been a secret which Mr. Lowther could neither +penetrate nor turn to his own use.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Yes, this simple-minded Cornishman, whose confiding candour +had revealed every feeling, and every shade of feeling, to +his baneful companion, had his secret now, and seemed to know +very well how to keep it.</p> + +<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_233'>233</span>There were days on which he had business which took him a +little way out of town; and Harcourt Lowther, pumping never +so wisely, could pump no further information out of the secret +depths of his friend’s mind. He had even proposed to accompany +Francis on these mysterious excursions, but his friendly +offers had been met by a point-blank refusal. He had ventured +a little playful <span lang="fr"><i>badinage</i></span>; he had gone so far as to make an +occasional insinuation; but Francis Tredethlyn had repelled +his hints with the fiery indignation of a man whose tenderest +and noblest feelings are involved in the subject of his friend’s +<span lang="fr"><i>persiflage</i></span>.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I know you get plenty of pleasant little witticisms of that +kind out of those flimsy-covered books Mr. Jeffs supplies you +with; but hadn’t you better keep them for Mrs. de Rothsay’s +next evening party? They tell so much better amongst people +who understand the French phrases you’re so fond of using. +Some of your best things might as well be Greek, so far as I +am concerned,” Mr. Tredethlyn said, coolly.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Mephistopheles shrugged his shoulders in mild deprecation +of his pupil’s impertinence. Faust was positively beginning to +acquire the tone of good society. He was learning to be insolent.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Harcourt Lowther left no stone unturned in his endeavours +to discover the Cornishman’s secret, but unluckily there were +not many stones to turn: and when Mr. Lowther had pumped +Francis, and pumped Francis’s valet, who could give no clue +whatever to his master’s conduct, there remained nothing more +to be done; unless, indeed, Mr. Lowther had cared to resort to +the private-inquiry system, and employ a shabby-genteel person +at three or four guineas a week to track the footsteps of Mr. +Tredethlyn. But this was a plan to which Harcourt Lowther +could only have resorted in the most desperate extremity. If +possible, he wanted to do dirty work <em>without</em> soiling his fingers. +The private-inquiry system would have been a dangerous kind +of machinery to put into motion—dangerous even if successful—utterly +fatal in the case of failure; and it was just possible +that the shabby-genteel person might do his spiriting awkwardly, +and make his watchfulness sufficiently intrusive to +arouse suspicion, and bring impetuous Francis Tredethlyn down +upon him in an avalanche of manly rage.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Pshaw!” thought Mr. Lowther, after a meditative and +leisurely review of his position. “It’s only a matter of so +much time. ‘<span lang="fr"><i>Point de zèle</i></span>,’ said Talleyrand; but he only +meant, don’t be in a hurry. Your zealous diplomatist may be +a very valuable person, provided he knows now to keep the +secret of his earnestness; but your impatient diplomatist is a +certain failure. Yet there are people who <em>will</em> gather their +<span class='pageno' id='Page_234'>234</span>fruit before it is ripe. When your true diplomatist comes to an +awkward knot in the airy network of his scheme, the best thing +he can do is to sit down quietly before the web until some +accidental hand unravels the entanglement. Chance is the unfailing +friend of the schemer; but the goddess is very capricious +in her visiting routine, and there are stupid creatures who +won’t wait for a morning call. Luckily, I am not one of them. +I can afford to be patient. Maude is an angel; the Stuccoville +dinners are excellent, and the Stuccoville wines are my own +selection; and for the rest I do pretty well. Ecarté is a most +agreeable game; especially when one plays with a man who is +half his time so absent-minded as to forget to mark the king. +Yes, dear Francis, I can afford to wait for the lucky accident +which is to put me in possession of the clue to those little trips +of yours, in hansom cabs, which you prefer to pick up for yourself; +thereby depriving your valet of any help to be derived by +an examination of the number of the vehicle, and a subsequent +chat with the driver.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Harcourt Lowther came very frequently to Mrs. Tredethlyn’s +drawing-rooms, now that she was to be found always accompanied +by her darling Julia, and entirely unembarrassed by his +visits. He did not always come at the orthodox hour, but would +make his appearance between eleven and twelve o’clock on a +hopelessly rainy morning, with a new book, or a roll of music, +or something delightfully hideous in the way of jelly-fish for +Maude’s aquarium, or the last fashion in ferns or orchids for +Maude’s conservatories; and the back of Mrs. Tredethlyn’s house +broke out into ferneries and conservatories wherever the ingenuity +of a fashionable builder could find an excuse for carrying +out Mrs. Tredethlyn’s graceful ideas, and swelling Mr. Tredethlyn’s +little account.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Mr. Lowther had contrived to make himself the friend of the +house, so there was always some very plausible excuse for visits +at unorthodox hours, and pleasant dawdling in Maude’s pretty +morning-room; and Stuccoville, furtively observant behind rose-coloured +curtains in opposite houses, took note of Mr. Lowther’s +morning calls, and kept a sharp account of the period that +elapsed between his entrances and exits; and all this time nothing +could be more delicately deferential, more tenderly respectful, +than Harcourt Lowther’s manner to his friend’s wife. By not +one hazardous phrase, by not so much as a furtive glance, a +half-suppressed sigh, had he awakened Maude to a perception +of possible danger in this pleasant intimacy with a man who +had once been her affianced husband. No poisonous breath +from the schemer’s false lips had tarnished the purity of this +bright young soul; but Stuccoville had taken alarm already, and—in +confidential converse in cosy comers of ottomans, under the +<span class='pageno' id='Page_235'>235</span>shadow of a tall vase of exotics, or a Parian statuette—declared +Mrs. Tredethlyn’s conduct to be “Positively appalling, my +dear; and that absurd west-country dolt of a husband continues +as blind as ever; and now she has taken a companion, +my love. You remember the companion in ‘Vanity Fair;’ +that delightful Becky calls her a sheep-dog; and you recollect +Madame de Marneffe’s companion in that horrible novel of +Balzac’s, which my tiresome Georgiana found the other morning +at the bottom of a cupboard, in which her brother Charles +keeps his cricketing shoes and fishing-tackle, and was discovered +by the governess sitting on the ground positively devouring the +book, and when questioned said it was ‘Télémaque;’ but as I +was about to tell you, my dear, with regard to Mrs. T⸺ and +Mr. H. L⸺!” and so the little mole-hill gathered size, and +gradually grew into a mountain.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Harcourt Lowther and Mrs. Tredethlyn’s darling Julia were +not slow to arrive at a very friendly understanding. One morning +spent in Miss Desmond’s society was quite sufficient to show +so subtle an observer as Harcourt the real state of that young +lady’s feelings with regard to her patroness. Indeed, Julia did +not take much trouble to conceal her sentiments. Gay and +animated one minute, darkly brooding the next, very often captious +and contradictory, sharply ironical, or sternly defiant, she +was in all things the very reverse of the paid companion who +sets her employer’s caprices against the amount of her salary, +and gratefully accepts any pleasures or advantages that fall in +her way. Maude’s natural forbearance was exaggerated by a +remorseful consciousness that all the luxuries and gaieties of her +life were so many blessings which she had in a manner stolen +from Julia, and her tenderness towards Miss Desmond was unbounded. +But there were times when the Irish girl rebelled +even against this tenderness.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Do you think my poverty is an open wound, that you +approach it so shrinkingly?” she exclaimed impatiently, one +day when Maude had broken down in a delicate periphrasis, in +which she tried to offer to pay her friend’s milliner’s bill without +wounding her friend’s pride. “Why don’t you say at once, ‘My +husband has thirty thousand a year, and a twenty-pound note +more or less is ineffably unimportant to me—while <em>you</em> must go +bareheaded if your pride revolts against dirty tulle and tumbled +flowers?’ Pay me my salary, Mrs. Tredethlyn, when it becomes +due, and do not force your favours upon me! for I come of a +proud race, who are slow to perceive the difference between an +unwelcome favour and an uncalled-for insult. As for the +unmade silk dresses which you have tried so delicately to force +upon me, under the pretence that the colours are unbecoming to +<span class='pageno' id='Page_236'>236</span>your complexion, you can parade your wealth and your generosity +by presenting them to your maid. I am <span lang="fr"><i>voué au noir</i></span> +henceforward; and when you are tired of seeing my shabby-genteel +black moiré and Limerick lace in some obscure corner of +your rooms, you have only to give me a hint, and I will spend +the evening in my own apartment.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>It was not often that Miss Desmond indulged in such a +speech as this, or perhaps even remorseful Maude could scarcely +have endured her companionship. She sometimes made herself +very agreeable during those idle rainy mornings in which Maude +and Harcourt practised the old concertante duets for flute and +piano, or dawdled amongst the delicate ferns with the crackjaw +names in the little fernery that opened out of the boudoir; or +devised gorgeously incomprehensible illuminations for an obscure +verse in Malachi. Julia could never be charming, for the +power to charm is a gift <span lang="la"><i>sui generis</i></span>, and does not necessarily +go along with versatile accomplishments or intellectual superiority; +but she could be an amusing and agreeable companion +whenever she pleased to exhibit herself in that character, and +she did so please very frequently; for it is so much less trouble +to be agreeable than to be disagreeable, that the most persevering +sulker is apt to give way under the weary burden of his +own bad temper. But let Miss Desmond be ever so vivacious, +or ever so delightful, Harcourt Lowther never lost sight of one +fact,—and that was the fact of Julia’s unappeased and unappeasable +hatred of Maude Tredethlyn. Stuccoville, which was +omniscient of everything, knew that Mr. Tredethlyn had been +engaged to Julia, and had jilted her in order to marry Maude; +and from Stuccoville Mr. Lowther obtained the clue to the Irish +girl’s feelings.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“A little genuine feminine malice might be rather a useful +element, if I can set it working unconsciously for my benefit. +Your amateur’s assistance is generally a dismal failure; but I +really think this Miss Desmond might help me. She is so very +clever—and so intensely spiteful.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>So one morning when Harcourt Lowther happened to find +Julia alone in the morning-room, he took the opportunity of +being quite confidential upon the subject of Mr. Tredethlyn’s +dissipation.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“He dined from home yesterday? and the day before? Ah, +to be sure, I dined with him the day before,” said Mr. Lowther, +with a deprecating sigh. He did not attempt to conceal the fact +of his own participation in Francis Tredethlyn’s pleasures; but +he contrived in the most subtle manner to make it understood +that he accompanied Francis in the character of a guardian +angel, a protecting spirit in modern costume, with an arresting +<span class='pageno' id='Page_237'>237</span>hand for ever extended to snatch the sinner from the verge of +the precipice. Miss Desmond shrugged her shoulders disdainfully.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I don’t think Mrs. Tredethlyn values her husband’s society +sufficiently to feel his neglect very keenly,” she said; “she +seems perfectly happy.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Yes, it was quite true; Maude seemed very happy, though +her husband spent the best part of his time away from home, +and was gloomy and ill at ease in her society. Harcourt Lowther’s +hints had done their work, and the breach was very wide +between husband and wife. Francis believed that his presence +was odious to Maude. Maude imagined that home pleasures +and simple domestic enjoyments were tame and insipid for +Francis. And it had all been so easily done! Harcourt had +only to make a few careless speeches about his friend.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“You see, my dear Mrs. Tredethlyn, a man of our dear +Frank’s temperament requires out-door amusements—hunting, +and shooting, and racing, and all their agreeable concomitants +in the way of meet breakfasts and uproarious dinners. A man +with Frank’s animal spirits must have more boisterous pleasures +than can be procured in a drawing-room, however charming—or +amongst women, however delightful. There are some +men who do <em>not</em> care for the society of ladies; very excellent +fellows in their way, but men in whose minds poetry and music, +beautiful scenery, exquisite sentiments, grand ideas, are all +classed under one head as ‘doosid bores.’ You know the style +of man who calls everything except his horse and his dog a +‘doosid bore.’ I don’t say that Tredethlyn is <em>quite</em> that sort +of man, but he is not a domestic animal.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Mr. Lowther—sitting amongst a chaos of feminine litter, +snipping out painted birds and flowers with a pair of fairy-like +scissors for Maude’s <span lang="fr"><i>potichomanie</i></span>, looked the very incarnation of +all that is domestic and devoted to the fair sex. Perhaps he +fully estimated the advantage of the contrast between his own +character and that of the men he had been describing.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Mrs. Tredethlyn gave a little sigh.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“And Frank <em>used</em> to be so very domestic; and so dotingly +fond of Floss,” she said, looking pensively at a mouse-coloured +Skye terrier, whose cold nose reposed in the pink palm of her +pretty hand. “However, we contrive to do very well without +him, don’t we, Flossy Possy? and we shouldn’t care if he went +to all the races in that dreadful calendar, and never, never came +near his own house at all, should we, Flossy Possy?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Harcourt Lowther, looking up furtively from the covert of +his auburn eyelashes, snipped a bird into mincemeat, and tightened +his mouth until the thin lips were scarcely visible.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“That nonsense sounds rather like pique,” he thought.</p> + +<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_238'>238</span>“Can she care for the fellow? A handsome boor, who would +scarcely know the difference between Beethoven’s ‘Moonlight’ +and ‘Rule, Britannia!’—can she have the faintest sentiment of +affection for such a man as that, when⸺”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Mr. Lowther’s self-esteem finished the sentence,—</p> + +<p class='c008'>“When she knows me, and can contrast my infinite graces +and accomplishments with the boor’s defects?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>But Mr. Lowther, looking at his position in all its aspects, +could not do otherwise than perceive that the provincial rust +was gradually wearing off the farmer’s son, and that Francis +Tredethlyn was learning to hold his own amongst men who +had played cricket in the Eton meads, and paced the grand old +cloisters and quadrangles of Oxford and Cambridge. Association +is the best schoolmaster; and even in Bohemia, a man +who is blessed with a fair amount of intelligence must learn +something.</p> + +<p class='c008'>There were times when Harcourt Lowther frowned darkly +as he brooded over his cards, and began to think that the game +was not such an easy one to win, after all. But he played +patiently, notwithstanding; and, true to his faith in the saving +help of Chance, he waited for the goddess to look over his +shoulder, and point with her inspired finger to the trump which +should win him the final trick.</p> + +</div> + +<div class='pbb'> + <hr class='pb c001'> +</div> +<div> + +<div> + <h2 class='c003'><a id='chapter-XXX'></a>CHAPTER XXX.<br> <br><span class='fss'>THE TWO ANTIPHOLI.</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>It was while the schemer was waiting that an event occurred +which had some influence upon the current of his life.</p> + +<p class='c008'>His elder brother, heir to all that Robert Lowther, of Lowther +Hall, Hampshire, had to leave, and expectant heir to the +more important possessions of a very wealthy maiden aunt, +returned unexpectedly from Belgium, where he had been established +for some time as a member of the <span lang="fr"><i>Corps Diplomatique</i></span>, +and dropped unannounced into Mr. Lowther’s lodging while +that gentleman was lounging over his breakfast.</p> + +<p class='c008'>The meeting between the two brothers was not remarkable +for its enthusiasm. Roderick Lowther strolled lazily into the +room, dropped into an easy-chair, and indulged in a long +leisurely stretch and a loud yawn before he addressed his +astonished relative.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Didn’t expect to see me yet awhile, did you, old boy? +Been travelling all night, and feel as if my bones were not so +much bones as rheumatism,—some fellow says something like +that in a book, doesn’t he? Came over in the <i>Baron Osy</i>; very +<span class='pageno' id='Page_239'>239</span>bad passage, jolting and tumbling about all night, waves +mountains high, as people say in books. So you’ve cut the +line, dear boy, and are living on the proceeds of your commission, +I suppose? The warrior blood of the Lowthers who +fought at Bosworth and Flodden seems to have lost a little of +its fiery quality in filtering through three centuries of country +gentlemen. There was a Lowther who distinguished himself +at bloody Malplaquet, by the bye, and another who was with +young General Wolfe on the heights of Quebec. But we’ve +done with all that nowadays. We are peacefully disposed, and +sell out on the earliest opportunity; and we steal a march on +our beloved brother, and come home on the quiet to cultivate +our maiden aunt.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“That’s a lie,” replied Harcourt, very coolly. “I haven’t been +near her since I came home.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“What did you come home for then?” asked the other. +<em>“You came for something.”</em></p> + +<p class='c008'>The two men looked at each other. They were very much +alike. There was the same steelly light in the blue eyes, the +same tight contraction of the thin lips. The elder looked at +the younger with a glance of shrewd inquiry; the younger +looked back sulky defiance.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Come,” said the traveller, after a second leisurely stretch +and a second prolonged yawn, “what is it, then, the little +game? Say, my friend. You didn’t sell out of her Majesty’s +service without a motive, and you didn’t come home without a +motive. By Jove! you never did anything in your life without +a motive. You are a schemer, my dear Harcourt. The +schemer is born, and not made, and he must obey his instincts. +Dear boy, I know your organization, and in these days of +physiological science no man can keep himself quite dark. +Iago would have been a failure if Othello had studied his +Lavater. Be candid, Harcourt, and tell me what noble vessel, +laden with the spoils of a new Peru, flaunts her white sails +upon the wind, and invites the attention of the pirate.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“You are so deuced confiding yourself, that you’ve a right +to demand another fellow’s confidence,” Harcourt responded, +moodily. “When I want your help, I’ll tell you my secrets. +That has been <em>your</em> way of managing matters, I believe.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“My Harcourt bears malice!” exclaimed Roderick. “Antipholus +of Ephesus reproaches Antipholus of Syracuse. Dear +boy, I suppose it’s our misfortune to be too much alike. Perhaps, +if you won’t give me your confidence, you will at least +oblige me with a chop. There was an atmosphere of smoky +chimneys and warm train-oil on board the <i>Baron</i> which incapacitated +me for breakfast.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Mr. Lowther the elder possessed himself of the teapot, and +<span class='pageno' id='Page_240'>240</span>appropriated his brother’s breakfast-cup, while Harcourt rang +the bell and gave an order for additional rolls and chops.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I didn’t know you were coming to England,” Mr. Lowther +the younger said, after a pause, in which he had stared moodily +at his brother.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I suppose not,” answered the other; “and I can’t say that +the heartiness of your welcome is very encouraging to the +returning prodigal. However, as I have not been in these dominions +for the last three years or more, and as my father and +I are not the best friends,—there’s nothing so economical for a +parent as a long-standing quarrel with all his children, by the +way,—I shall look to you, my dear Harcourt, for any friendly +offices I may require. I have three months’ leave of absence, +and I have not—<span lang="fr"><i>le sou</i></span>. I come to England to recuperate, as +brother Jonathan has it. I want to get on the blind side of my +beloved aunt to the tune of a few hundreds; and I want to +marry an heiress.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Oh,” said Harcourt, thoughtfully, “you want to marry an +heiress?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Yes; can you help me to do it?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I think not.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Humph! perhaps if I could make it worth your while to +assist me you’d tell another story. However, you can introduce +me to some nice people, I suppose?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Harcourt nodded moodily.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“And I must look up my own old set. Not that I know +many people, for I lived such a hide-and-seek sort of life when +I was in England. Can you get me rooms in this house? We +can commonize, you know. I left my portmanteaus on board +the <i>Baron</i>. I suppose there’s a boots, or a somebody of the +scout species appertaining to this establishment, who can take a +cab, and fetch them for me?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Thus unceremoniously did Antipholus of Syracuse establish +himself in the abode of his ungracious brother. Frankenstein, +pursued by the monster of his creation, could scarcely have +seemed more ill at ease than Harcourt Lowther under the infliction +of his brother’s society. Was it that these men were too +much alike? Did Harcourt think that the keen eyes of his +brother would follow every thread in the intricate network of +his scheme, and the subtle brain of his brother would apply +itself to plotting against him?</p> + +<p class='c008'>But the coolness so apparent in Harcourt’s reception of the +returning wanderer made no impression whatever on that gentleman. +Roderick Lowther stretched his long legs upon his +brother’s hearth-rug, and smoked his brother’s cigars, with a +serene indifference as to his brother’s feelings.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“<a id='tn-blandly'></a>If you dine anywhere to-day you can take me with you,” he +<span class='pageno' id='Page_241'>241</span>said, blandly; “and to-morrow I’ll introduce you to a splendid +set of fellows at the ‘Travellers’.’ You haven’t thought of an +heiress yet, I suppose?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“No.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Ah, you’ll hit upon something in that way presently, I dare +say, if you run your mind’s eye over your visiting list. I’m in +no hurry. Three months is a small eternity in these days of +railroads and photography.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“And you really would marry?” said Harcourt again, very +thoughtfully.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Really would? Of course I would, if I could get the chance +of making an advantageous match, and propitiate my aunt +Dorothea by the sacrifice. You know how bent the prudent old +lady has always been on my making a great marriage, and restoring +the forgotten glories of the Lowthers. Yes, Harcourt, I +come prepared for victory, and I trust to your brotherly friendship +to help me to see and conquer.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Humph! By the bye, I suppose you have heard nothing +of⸺”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Not a word,” answered Roderick, rather hastily; “I know +what you’re going to talk about, and as that’s rather an unpleasant +subject to me, we may as well agree to avoid it. I wrote a +letter, candid, explanatory, and so forth; promising to do what +I considered my duty. I don’t profess to be a generous man, +and I freely acknowledge that I’m a very poor one; so the +modest annual sum, which I considered my duty, was⸺well, +<em>very modest</em>! However, the letter was unanswered. People +drop through, you see,” concluded Mr. Lowther the elder, blowing +away a slender puff of blue vapour, as if he had been blowing +away a troublesome subject; “and when people do, of their own +election, drop through, I can’t see that it’s any fellow’s duty to +dig them up again. <em>You</em> haven’t heard anything, I suppose?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Not a word.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Fortunate for you! Sometimes that sort of person fastens +on to one’s relations. However, as I observed before, we’ll agree +to avoid the subject. Suppose we discuss your affairs?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I had much rather we did not.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Of course, dear boy; but as I am candidly disposed myself, +I don’t mean to be kept in the dark by the most saturnine of +brothers who ever sulked in the face of an amiable relative. +<em>You</em> used to be engaged to an heiress—something in the Moorgate-Street +line—Australian merchandise, wasn’t it? a Miss +Hillersdon, or Hillary, eh, dear boy? There used to be something +of that sort on the cards, I believe?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“There used to be, but there has ceased to be for the last +twelve months. Will that do for you?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Ah, Miss Hillersdon—or Hillary—has jilted you, I suppose?”</p> + +<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_242'>242</span>“She has.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“And the man she has married⸺”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Is my very good friend, the happy possessor of a charming +wife and a large fortune, and the man at whose house I dine to-day.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Oh!” exclaimed Roderick Lowther, lengthening the ejaculation +to its extremest capacity of extension—“Oh, I think I begin +to understand your policy. Miss Hillary has married a rich +man, and you are intimate with the husband and <span lang="fr"><i>au mieux</i></span> +with the wife. The husband is a sickly fellow—consumptive—apoplectic, +eh, dear boy?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“The husband is something over six feet high, and has the +shoulders of a lifeguardsman; and, if it were not for his dissipated +habits, might live to be ninety.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Ah, if it were not for his dissipated habits. And you are +his intimate friend? My dear Harcourt, what a very transparent +game you are playing! and what a consummate fool you +must be if you supposed that I shouldn’t see through it! Why +not a bond of union between us—all for one, and one for all, like +Dumas’s musketeers? Help me to find an heiress, and I’ll help +you <span lang="fr"><i>auprès de</i></span> Mrs. ⸺, what’s the lady’s name, by the bye?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Harcourt Lowther allowed this last piece of information to be +screwed out of him, and parted with it as grudgingly as he had +parted with the rest. It is not a pleasant thing when you are +playing a very difficult game with the odds against you, to have +an inconvenient brother swooping down upon you and insisting +on looking over your hand.</p> + +<p class='c008'>There was no affection between these two brothers; the likeness +which they bore to each other, morally as well as physically, +seemed to have a blighting influence upon their relations. They +knew each other, and they distrusted each other. Perhaps it +would have been scarcely too much to say they hated each other.</p> + +<p class='c008'>But they went out to dinner together nevertheless, and Harcourt +smilingly introduced his brother to Mrs. Tredethlyn and +Miss Desmond. They had plenty of time to grow quite intimate +in the drawing-room while they were waiting for Francis, who +came in, flushed with a hurried toilet, at ten minutes to eight. +He had been absent upon one of his mysterious excursions a +little way out of town.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Roderick Lowther was received very graciously by the two +ladies, and cordially welcomed by Mr. Tredethlyn. Harcourt, +watching his brother ensconced in a nook of Maude’s favourite +ottoman, and discoursing at his ease upon Belgian notabilities, +was troubled by dark misgivings of danger.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I must find the fellow a quarry for himself,” he thought, +“or he’ll be trying to stalk my game. He asks me to introduce +him to an eligible <span lang="fr"><i>parti</i></span> as coolly as if life were a five-act comedy, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_243'>243</span>with the traditional heiress always waiting to fall a prey to the +traditional adventurer. An heiress! in these days of marvellous +commercial successes there must be such things as heiresses. +But the question is where to look for them.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>One of Mr. Tredethlyn’s pompous retainers opened the drawing-room +door at this moment and announced—</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Mr. and Miss Grunderson.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Egad!” thought Harcourt Lowther, “there’s the solution of +my difficulty. Why not Miss Grunderson? Miss Grunderson +is an heiress, or ought to be, if there is stability in any part of +the commercial universe.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>A young lady with a very rosy face, a young lady decidedly +inclined to that quality which in the fair sex is elegantly entitled +<span lang="fr"><i>embonpoint</i></span>, a young lady who was surrounded by surging +flounces of pink areophane, dotted about with more pink rosebuds +and larger full-blown roses than were ever worn by any +young lady with a judicious recollection of the sweeps on Mayday, +bounced into the room, and bounced up to Mrs. Tredethlyn; +while an elderly gentleman, who was evidently the young lady’s +papa, beamed mildly at the company across an enormous expanse +of embroidered shirt-front and black waistcoat.</p> + +<p class='c008'>But in the network that Harcourt Lowther has woven Miss +Grunderson is destined to be considerably entangled, and deserves +to be introduced more ceremoniously in a fresh chapter.</p> + +</div> + +<div class='pbb'> + <hr class='pb c001'> +</div> +<div> + +<div> + <h2 class='c003'><a id='chapter-XXXI'></a>CHAPTER XXXI.<br> <br><span class='fss'>THE DIPLOMATIST’S POLICY.</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>That ponderous Mr. Grunderson, who plunged heavily down +upon Maude’s central ottoman, a miraculous combination of +upholstery and floriculture—that shining bald-headed Mr. Grunderson, +who sat placidly grinning at the company, and addressed +his hostess as “Mum”—had begun life as a market-gardener; +and, had Mrs. Tredethlyn been born some twenty years earlier, +would have been proud to supply her with azaleas and camellias +for the decoration of the ottoman upon which he was now sitting. +The march of progress, and the accompanying march of bricks +and mortar, had driven before them the cabbages and strawberry-beds, +the cucumber-frames and young plantations of evergreens, +by the cultivation of which Mr. Grunderson and his forefathers +had lived comfortably upon one-o’clock dinners of fat bacon and +indigestible dumplings, with occasional varieties of butcher’s +meat, thinking themselves passing rich when their ledgers +showed a profit of two or three hundred pounds at the end of +the year.</p> + +<p class='c008'>The march of civilization, or rather the march of the myrmidons +<span class='pageno' id='Page_244'>244</span>of that unreasoning despot, that implacable ruler, whom +women call Fashion, always pushing westward, had contrived to +push Mr. Grunderson’s gardens off the face of the earth, and in +so doing had set a Pactolus flowing steadily into Mr. Grunderson’s +pocket. The wealth poured in upon him with a rapidity +which was like nothing but a fairy tale. That heroic Jack of +the nursery story—who, by the bye, seems to have had no surname—never +looked in more amazement on the bean-stalk that +shot into the very skies in a single night, than did the honest +market-gardener at the stuccoed district which had arisen, +seven or eight stories and a campanello tower high, on the fields +where he remembered execrating the slugs on dewy mornings +a few years before. Where a prairie of bright red stocks had +perfumed all the summer air with spicy odours, a square of +stately mansions stared grimly at each other, and prime ministers’ +carriages rolled with meteor lamps through the midnight +darkness. Where ragged children, and gaunt sunburnt women, +in blucher-boots and with indescribable bonnets balanced on +their freckled noses, had weeded strawberry-beds for a pitiful +sixpence a day, duchesses trailed their silken trains and wearied +of the rolling hours after the approved manner of their kind in +the pages of the poets and romancers. The transformation +was as perfect as it had been rapid; and instead of the cabbages +and cabbage-roses, the cucumber-frames and hothouse flowers +of his youth and early manhood, Mr. Grunderson found himself, +at fifty years of age, proprietor of ground-rents that made him +a millionaire. He had only one child, a daughter, who had +been educated for some fifty pounds a year at a seminary for +young ladies, in which she had been cruelly snubbed on account +of her father’s cabbages, and who was now determined to revenge +herself on the companions of her blighted youth by the +splendour of her womanhood. Led by this young lady, who +was blessed with an energetic temperament and imperturbable +good humour, Mr. Grunderson found himself, always more or +less independently of his own agency, going through the complete +formula of fashionable life according to his daughter +Rosa’s notion of that formula; which notion was extremely +variable, and took its colour from the last acquaintance to whom +the lively heiress was pleased to attach herself.</p> + +<p class='c008'>The very last just now happened to be Maude Tredethlyn, +about whom Rosa was ready to go off into raptures at any +moment, and whom she always spoke of as “a dear,” “a love,” +or “a darling.” But there was a warm womanly heart beating +under Rosa’s fine dresses, and her raptures had more meaning +in them than the raptures of enthusiastic young ladies are apt +to have. She attached herself so effectually to Maude that +Mrs. Tredethlyn was fain to forget, or at any rate to forgive, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_245'>245</span>the occasional lapses in her grammar, the unpleasant warmth +of her fat little hands, which always came flopping down on +the hands of her companion when she was enthusiastic, and the +shadow of vulgarity which is so apt to accompany the sunshine +of low-born liveliness.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Harcourt Lowther took an early opportunity to inform his +elder brother that the young lady in pink areophane was an +heiress, and an heiress well worthy the cultivation of any enterprising +young diplomatist. Roderick was not slow to take +the hint, but he was a great deal too much of a diplomatist +to attempt any obvious angling for this rich prize. He exerted +all his powers of fascination in order to make himself agreeable +to Mrs. Tredethlyn, and he did not address so much as one +syllable of the most commonplace civility to the market-gardener’s +daughter; the consequence of which little manœuvre +was, that as Rosa was sitting next to Maude all the evening, +she listened open-mouthed to every word he uttered, and when +she departed in her papa’s three-hundred-guinea chariot—the +market-gardener had insisted on possessing the traditional +lemon-coloured chariot with hammer-cloth, and powdered retainers, +which he had beheld and admired in his boyhood—she +carried Roderick Lowther’s image away with her.</p> + +<p class='c008'>It must be acknowledged, however, that it was no uncommon +occurrence for Miss Grunderson to carry the image of some +tolerably good-looking and passably well-mannered young man +away from any festal gathering at which she happened to find +herself. The good-humoured Rosa had a habit of falling +desperately in love with any eligible person whom she encountered +either in public or private life, who did anything to make +himself notorious, or wore his hair long enough to be entitled a +Being. A long list of Beings had occupied that sentimental +caravansary which Miss Grunderson called her heart. She had +been in love with all the poets, from the Laureate to Mr. +Tupper; with all the novelists, from the great Sir Edward to +the newest fledged of Mr. Mudie’s popularities; and I fear she +often fell in love with angels unawares in the shape of feminine +romancers who were pleased to hide their gentle sex under masculine +nomenclature. She had been in love—fathoms deep—with +Lord Palmerston, Signor Mario, Sir Edwin Landseer, and +Mr. Charles Mathews. She was wont to keep the three-hundred-guinea +chariot waiting in Pall Mall for an hour at a stretch +while she hunted Mr. Graves and his assistants for the last +new portrait of her last new idol; and her room was like a good +Catholic’s chapel,—hung with the engraved effigies of an army +of saints.</p> + +<p class='c008'>It was a very pure flame which burnt before so many shrines, +and a very harmless one; and perhaps if Mr. Lowther the elder +<span class='pageno' id='Page_246'>246</span>had known Rosa Grunderson’s little idiosyncrasies, he would +not have felt quite so complacently triumphant in the consciousness +that her round grey eyes had been fixed upon him all the +evening with the fond gaze of hero-worship. Harcourt contrived +to swell this triumph by artful little brotherly compliments, +as the two young men walked Londonwards under the +starlit summer sky, smoking their regalias, and talking as men +about town do talk under those sublime stars. Sentimental +Rosa was gazing at those luminous unknown worlds from the +covert of the pinkest curtains in Stuccoville, and thinking about +<em>Him</em>! Rosa’s last adoration was always mysteriously alluded +to under cover of a personal pronoun. Her admiration for +Roderick Lowther was multiplied a hundredfold by the young +diplomatist’s disregard of her. Poor Rosa had been accustomed +to be made the object of what, in the argotic parlance of +her age, she called “a dead set,” on account of her papa’s +ground-rents; and she was inclined to imagine Mr. Lowther the +noblest and most disinterested of mankind because he did not +commence this “dead set” immediately after being introduced +to her.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I wonder whether he knows that I’m <em>the</em> Miss Grunderson?” +she thought, as she looked up at those romantic stars so +familiar to her in her Byron. “Of course he does, though, +’Pa is <em>so</em> different from the rest of society, that people always +know there’s some reason for his being where he is, and they’re +not very long guessing that the reason is money. Will anybody +ever want to marry me for my own sake, I wonder? Ah, +how I wish the Marquis of Westminster would fall in love with +me! <em>He</em> couldn’t want pa’s ground-rents.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Thus the maiden mused in her bower, while Roderick Lowther, +encouraged by his junior, talked complacently of his conquest.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“She’s the simplest little thing in Christendom,” he said; +“simpler than—anybody I ever met in my life. The disinterested +game is the dodge in that quarter, dear boy. Do you +remember how Frederic Soulié’s <cite>Lion</cite> treats the little shopkeeper’s +daughter? First with the elegant devotion of a +fashionable Romeo, then with the <span lang="fr"><i>brusquerie</i></span> of a Benedick +or a Petruchio. <i>Lise Laloine</i> died under the treatment; but I +don’t think the plump Rosa is made of quite such ethereal stuff. +<span lang="fr"><i>La Petite</i></span> is sentimental, and wants to be loved for herself +alone; ‘O, wert thou in the cauld blast!’ <a id='tn-burleigh'></a>‘And long he +mourned, the Lord of Burleigh;’ and that sort of thing. She +shall have it, the darling innocent! Tennyson and Owen +Meredith by the <span lang="fr"><i>kilo</i></span>, disinterested devotion by the bushel. But +oh, my Harcourt, do not lure your loving brother into the quagmire +of delusive wealth! Make sure that our simple-looking +<span class='pageno' id='Page_247'>247</span>Grunderson does not hide the cloven hoof of insolvency under +the golden fleece in which he drapes himself: those simple-looking +men generally fail for half a million. I like your Mrs. Tredethlyn, +by the bye; she is very pretty and very elegant; but, +to be candid, my dear Harcourt—a brother ought to be candid, +you know, even at the risk of being unpleasant—I fancy there +is more in the husband than you imagine. A man with such a +chest must have some solidity in his composition. If I am +anything of a physiologist, it is not in that man’s organization +to be made a fool of. Ah, I see you don’t care to talk about it; +you like to keep your own secrets, and play your own game +without backers or advisers. So be it. For myself, I am of +an open disposition; I like to talk of my own affairs when they +go smoothly, and to drop them when they take the crooked +course. I don’t suppose Napoleon the First was very fond of +talking about Waterloo. He forgot <em>that</em> little skirmish, you +may depend; and talked of Arcola and Lodi, the Pyramids, +Austerlitz, Wagram, and Auerstadt. I dare say Mr. Merry +holds his tongue about those two-thousand-guinea colts that +<em>didn’t</em> win the Derby. People are <em>not</em> eloquent about their +failures. I shall look up my old aunt early to-morrow morning; +and after that, if you have any excuse for calling on Mrs. Tredethlyn, +I shall be glad to accompany you. Unless I am very +much at fault in feminine psychology, Miss Grunderson will +drop in upon her friend, to discuss my bearish behaviour, on the +earliest opportunity. Nothing impresses a sentimental young +person so favourably as downright rudeness. The heroine in +a lady’s novel always adores the man who snubs her.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Thus argued the diplomatist by profession, strolling Strand-wards +in the starlight; while the diplomatist by organization +listened quietly, and thought his own thoughts as regarded this +grand conquest, of which his kinsman was so proud. Harcourt +Lowther was not apt to resent the insolent <span lang="fr"><i>insouciance</i></span>, the +calm assurance of superiority, with which his senior treated +him, and indeed had treated him from that early boyhood in +which the lads had played together at Eton. But the wrongs +that rankle deeply in a man’s breast are sometimes those which +he endures silently. Harcourt believed that his own prospects +had been sacrificed to the advancement of Roderick; and he +was not sorry when the elder son went wild, and turned his +back as coolly upon his father as if he had never been the pampered +favourite of weak love, the all-absorbing drain upon a +limited income. In every way Roderick had fared better than +his brother. Lowther Hall, surrounded by park and farm-lands +that constituted an estate of some three hundred acres, might +not be worth very much to a man of large ideas and lofty inspirations; +but whatever it was worth, it was tightly entailed +<span class='pageno' id='Page_248'>248</span>upon the heir of the Lowthers, and not so much as a game-keeper’s +cottage or a scrap of meadow-land was reserved for +the luckless junior. Mrs. Lowther had been mistress of a small +fortune, but that had been spent on the education of the two +young men,—Harcourt in this matter, as in all others, going to +the wall; for his University career had been cut short in order +that his brother’s debts might be paid, and that extravagant +gentleman be enabled to face the big-wigs of his college without +fear of clamorous creditors, and read at leisure for a degree +which he was too lazy to succeed in getting. After this Harcourt’s +prospects had again been sacrificed, and the young barrister, +unable to live at the bar, had been fain to accept an +ensign’s commission; while Roderick, pushed into the diplomatic +world by a desperate effort of family interest, exhibited +his handsome face at the Prussian Court, and squandered every +farthing that he could screw out of his father’s slender purse. +When the purse had become as empty as it well could, there +had been the usual remonstrances, the usual bad feeling which +is likely to arise between an utterly selfish and unprincipled +young man and the father who is no longer able to be of any +use to him, and who takes the liberty of resenting the extravagance +which has involved his later life in difficulties.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Besides the advantages obtained from his father’s partiality, +Roderick Lowther had been the favourite of a maiden aunt of +miserly habits and independent fortune, who had condescended +to give him her name at the baptismal font, and who had never +bestowed on him anything else—except, indeed, a neat cloth-bound +copy of “The Dairyman’s Daughter,” presented to the +lad one birthday, and promptly disposed of at a rag-and-bone +shop in the High Street of Harrow for the small sum of fourpence. +But although Miss Dorothea Burnett had not been very +liberal in her donations to her favourite nephew during her +lifetime, it was supposed that, after her departure from this +world, the young man would reap the reward of occasional +dutifully-worded letters and affected deference to her wishes, and +that the reward would be a very substantial one; for Miss Burnett +had contrived to swell her own little fortune by many stray +windfalls in the way of legacies from relatives, whose regard +her busy married sister Mrs. Lowther had neglected to cultivate. +Beyond this, the maiden lady had bought small but profitable +tenements, and had dabbled a little in shares; and she had +watched her small investments with an intelligence, and nursed +them with a tenderness, which her stockbroker had admiringly +declared to be a credit to the sex she adorned by her commercial +acumen.</p> + +<p class='c008'>So Roderick Lowther, finding his younger brother on the +field, was alarmed by the idea that he might have been undermined +<span class='pageno' id='Page_249'>249</span>in this direction, and was by no means inclined to lose +any time before presenting himself to his spinster aunt. He +brushed and curled his amber whiskers with more than usual +circumspection, therefore, on the morning after the dinner at +Mrs. Tredethlyn’s; and walking through Covent Garden, on +his way to Miss Burnett’s Bloomsbury hermitage, he expended +sixpence on a hothouse flower to put in the button-hole of the +dark-blue coat which he wore under a flimsy outer garment of +pale grey. He had dressed himself very carefully, for he knew +that, in spite of the maiden lady’s lectures on the subject of +prudence, her feminine eye was fascinated by the elegant frivolities +which she affected to disapprove.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Miss Burnett occupied a very big house in the dullest street +in Bloomsbury—a dismal <span lang="fr"><i>cul de sac</i></span>, in which there was almost +always an elderly organ-grinder playing “Home, sweet home,” +or the “Old Hundredth,” with a little group of squalid children +gathered round him. The big house smelt like a tomb, and +was almost as rarely opened as if it had been one; for the +butcher-boy who brought Miss Burnett’s mutton-chop, or the +half-pound of steak or three-quarters of liver, upon which Miss +Burnett’s servant was wont to make her repast, handed his +wares across the area-gate, and exchanged no word of comment +with the grim damsel who received them, knowing very well +that the lady of the house sat at her favourite window in the +front parlour, with her open Bible before her, and a watchful +eye upon the outer world, which some sentimental Christians +might have thought scarcely consistent with so much piety.</p> + +<p class='c008'>The grim damsel who admitted Roderick Lowther to Miss +Burnett’s darksome abode relaxed her ordinary sternness of +visage into something faintly resembling a smile as she recognized +her mistress’s nephew.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Your aunt has been very ill since you were last here, Mr. +Lowther,” the woman said, in answer to Roderick’s inquiry. +“She was very bad with her asthma all the winter; but the +warm spring weather brought her round again.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Yes,” thought the young man, “the spring weather always +does bring her round,—and always will, I suppose, till I am +dead and in my grave.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>He was ushered into the dining-room while this irreverent +idea was in his mind; and the next minute he was seated opposite +to his aunt, inquiring tenderly about her asthma. The +dining-room was very dismal. There was more mahogany furniture +and brown damask than is compatible with the smallest +ray of cheerfulness, and the walls were rendered ghastly by +some hideous preparations painted in asphaltum, and exhibiting +gigantic cracks that looked like gory, yawning wounds,—preparations +which, on account of their smoky nature and revolting +<span class='pageno' id='Page_250'>250</span>choice of subject, were supposed to be the work of the old +masters.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I am very glad to see you, my dear Roderick,” said Miss Burnett, +gravely; “as glad as I can be about anything in this carnal +life,” added the old lady, whose spirits had been revived that +morning by a rise of one and a quarter per cent. in the value of +her pet investment. “But we are taught not to rejoice, Roderick, +except in that which⸺Is that a hothouse flower, my dear?” +inquired Miss Burnett, <a id='tn-looking'></a>looking sharply at the myosotis in her +nephew’s button-hole. “Dear, dear! what an extravagant age +it is! You are looking very well, my dear Roderick. I dare say +you are what a worldly-minded person would call very handsome; +but we must try to remember that we are all worms,” +murmured the old lady with a doleful sigh; for she took the +gloomy view of things which is so common to some people who +read that Gospel which is all life and colour and brightness, full +of the happy faces of merry-makers at a bridal festival, and +little children gathering round a favourite Teacher’s knees, +radiant with sudden rejoicings in mourning households, the +dead restored to smile upon the living. There is something +strange in the dull grey tint which some worshippers are able +to infuse into a story that a painter can hardly read without +feeling the tropical heat of a meridian sun, the perfume of a +thousand lilies, the spicy odours of the feathery palms, and the +free dash of Galilee’s blue waves about the prow of a fisherman’s +frail bark sailing gaily under an Eastern sky. Surely +the richness of colour with which the Catholic Church invests +the Christian faith is, after all, only the natural attribute of a +religion which arose amid the splendour and beauty of the Holy +Land!</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I hope, my dear Roderick,” said the maiden lady, very +solemnly, “that while absent in those idolatrous foreign lands, +you kept the promise which you gave me before leaving England.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“My dear aunt,” murmured the young man, who had quite +forgotten having made any promise whatever to his pious +relative, and was painfully mystified by this address, “I assure +you that I⸺”</p> + +<p class='c008'>He would have broken down here, but the lady came to his +rescue.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Don’t prevaricate, Roderick!” she exclaimed, sternly. “Did +you, or did you not, enter a Roman Catholic place of worship +during your sojourn among the high priests of Baal? Did you, +or did you not, sit under one of those idolatrous worshippers of +stocks and stones? And oh, that I should live to see candlesticks +on the altar of a church in this very neighbourhood!” +cried Miss Burnett, with a sudden burst of indignation; “and to +<span class='pageno' id='Page_251'>251</span>hear snuffling, which I at first attributed to a cold in the head, +but afterwards ascertained to be the wicked workings of <span class='sc'>Rome</span>!”</p> + +<p class='c008'>The stanch Dorothea paused for a few moments to recover +her indignation, and then tackled her nephew once more.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“You promised me, before going to Belgium, that you would +not, however tempted, enter a Roman Catholic place of worship,” +she said.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“And I did <em>not</em>, my dear aunt,” answered Roderick, promptly; +“I give you my word of honour as a gentleman.” “Nor any +other place of worship,” thought the heir, as his aunt nodded +approvingly.</p> + +<p class='c008'>And then there was a little more talk, chiefly taking the +form of a catechism, which Mr. Lowther went through triumphantly, +since his answers to the old lady’s inquiries were shaped +in accordance with his knowledge of what was likely to please +his aunt, rather than with any reference to actual fact. But a +man must do a good many mean things when he devotes himself +to the cultivation of a narrow-minded maiden aunt, for the +chance of inheriting small tenements and first-preference bonds +in flourishing railway companies. Roderick Lowther breathed +a long sigh of relief when he left the house that smelt like a +tomb behind him, after drinking a glass of his aunt’s dry +sherry, which act of devotion was in itself no small penance.</p> + +<p class='c008'>He hailed a hansom as soon as he was safely beyond ken of +the observant spinster, and was rattled back to his brother’s +lodgings, where he found Harcourt pondering moodily over the +“Times” newspaper, and whence the same hansom drove the +two Antipholi to Stuccoville.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Mr. Tredethlyn was out, but Mrs. Tredethlyn was at home. +Harcourt went into his friend’s study to write a note; while +Roderick followed a servant to the drawing-rooms, in the +smallest and cosiest of which three gorgeous apartments the +diplomatist found Maude and Rosa seated side by side on a low +sofa, while proud Julia meditated apart at the window.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“You’re the lady I should like to marry,” thought Roderick, +as he looked at Julia’s dark face, which lighted up for a moment +with her flashing smile, as she bowed to him, and then relapsed +into gloom; “there’d be some pleasure in taming <em>you</em>. Who +would care to cage a robin? but there would be some glory in +subduing the spirit of an eagle.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Thus mused Mr. Lowther, while he murmured some commonplace +remark upon the beauty of the summer day, and dropped +himself lazily into a seat near Maude Tredethlyn. He was true +to his tactics of the night before, and addressed his remarks +almost entirely to Maude and Julia. When he did condescend +to address the vivacious Rosa, he did so in a manner that was a +delicate admixture of the intellectual bearishness of one of poor +<span class='pageno' id='Page_252'>252</span>Miss Brontés heroes with the lively banter of a Benedick. The +result of this policy was triumphant, and the market-gardener’s +daughter plunged deeper and deeper still into her five-and-twentieth +hopeless attachment.</p> + +<p class='c008'>While Mr. Lowther the elder was cultivating his own interests +in the drawing-room, Mr. Lowther the younger was pacing +up and down Francis Tredethlyn’s study in no happy frame of +mind. Imagine the feelings of a Mephistopheles who begins to +suspect that his victim has slipped away from him. Harcourt +was beginning to feel very doubtful as to the firmness of his +hold on his pupil and companion.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Francis Tredethlyn’s conduct for the last few weeks had quite +baffled his friend’s penetration. The Cornishman had grown +suddenly preoccupied and reserved. He might still be seen in +the haunts of the Bohemians—for Mr. Lowther took care that +he should not easily extricate himself from the bonds that he +had allowed to be coiled about him; but Francis, always unwilling +to be led into the scenes where he had no pleasure, was +now more unwilling than ever, and Harcourt found it very difficult +to play the game he wanted to play without showing his +cards. If it had been a mere question of plucking so many +feathers from an innocent pigeon, the thing might have been +done easily enough, perhaps; but Mr. Lowther evidently wanted +something more than his friend’s golden plumage. It seemed, +indeed, as if he would be satisfied with nothing less than the +utter ruin and degradation of Maude Tredethlyn’s husband.</p> + +<p class='c008'>To-day, walking up and down the study, whose broad plate-glass +window commanded an agreeable view of a stony quadrangle +and the roofs and chimneys of a mews, Harcourt thought +very despondently of that grand scheme to which he had devoted +himself so patiently since his return to England.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“What secret is the fellow hiding from me?” he thought, resentfully; +“he refused to dine with me to-day, and he threw +over the party I made for Greenwich the day before yesterday. +He has made no book for the York summer, and yet he is less +at home than ever. What does it all mean? Can he have gone +to the bad in real earnest at last, and without any help from +me? There must be something in it; but what is the something?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Tired at last of such meditations as these, Harcourt Lowther +flung himself into a chair to compose the letter he had talked +about writing when he entered the study.</p> + +<p class='c008'>He wrote his note, which was very brief, and the gist of which +was to remind Francis of some engagement that would entail +the usual champagne drinking, the usual squandering of money +for the gratification of the worthless society in which a few innocent +pigeons abandoned themselves to be plucked without mercy +<span class='pageno' id='Page_253'>253</span>by every species of predatory fowl. After having written this +little note, so carefully worded that no print of the fiend’s hoof +could have been deciphered therein by uninitiated eyes, Harcourt +Lowther sat with his elbow on the table, biting the feather +of his pen, and ruminating moodily. There were open letters +and tradesmen’s bills lying about upon Francis Tredethlyn’s +disorderly writing-table. Mr. Lowther flung aside his pen presently, +and amused himself by a careless examination of these +documents. Some of the bills were heavy ones, but not so +heavy as to make any very serious inroad upon the Cornishman’s +fortune, and Harcourt tossed them away from him one +after the other, uninterested in their details, unconcerned by +their sum-totals, until he came to a dead stop all at once at the +first line of a document which seemed to him to bear an extraordinary +significance.</p> + +<p class='c008'>This document was the bill of a fashionable upholsterer, and +the line below the tradesman’s name and address ran thus:</p> + +<p class='c008'>“For goods supplied to Francis Tredethlyn, Esq., at Brook +Cottage, Petersham, June 20th, 185-;” and then followed a list +of the furniture for a cottage, the sum-total of which came to +little more than three hundred pounds.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“So,” muttered Mr. Lowther, “I think I have fallen upon the +clue to the mystery. We will go and look at Mr. Tredethlyn’s +furnished cottage.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>He wrote the address on a tablet in his <span lang="fr"><i>portemonnaie</i></span>, and +went up-stairs to the drawing-room, where he found Roderick +intolerably at his ease in the society of the three ladies. There +was an arrangement made for a meeting in Maude’s roomy box +at Covent Garden, to which Mrs. Tredethlyn was fain to invite +the affectionate Rosa, who clung to her with peculiar fondness +to-day: and then the two gentlemen took their departure; +Roderick to look in at the “Travellers’” and the “St. James’s;” +Harcourt to hurry post-haste—or rather hansom-cab haste—to +the Waterloo terminus, whence he took the train for Richmond.</p> + +</div> + +<div class='pbb'> + <hr class='pb c001'> +</div> +<div> + +<div> + <h2 class='c003'><a id='chapter-XXXII'></a>CHAPTER XXXII.<br> <br><span class='fss'>HARCOURT GATHERS HIS FIRST FRUITS.</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>The party in Mrs. Tredethlyn’s opera-box that evening was +a very pleasant one. Whatever business had taken Harcourt +Lowther to Richmond must have been tolerably satisfactory in +its result, for that gentleman’s spirits were gayer than usual as +he stood behind Maude’s chair in the shadow of the crimson +curtain, talking to her under cover of all those crashing choruses +and grand orchestral effects which Meyerbeer must surely have +<span class='pageno' id='Page_254'>254</span>composed with a view to comfortable conversation. Miss Grunderson +was gorgeous in thirty guineas worth of blue moiré antique +<span lang="fr"><i>à la Watteau</i></span>, and exhibited a small fortune in the way of lace +and artificial flowers upon her plump little person. Her diamond +earrings were the biggest in the opera-house; though it must +be confessed that a straw-coloured tint, which the connoisseur +repudiates, pervaded the gems that the market-gardener had +bought for his daughter—size, rather than purity of water, +being the quality for which Mr. Grunderson selected his diamonds. +Nothing could be more striking than the contrast +between Maude’s simple toilet of white silk and Rosa’s gaudy +splendour.</p> + +<p class='c008'>But Miss Grunderson was very happy this evening, for the +delightful Roderick condescended to talk to her, while his +brother was engrossed by Mrs. Tredethlyn. He was not very +polite, but Rosa thought him positively charming. She had +learnt to understand the emptiness of the attentions that had +been paid to her by enterprising young bachelors, who thought +that an alliance with the great Grunderson’s daughter would be +a very pleasant starting-point on the high-road of life; but she +did not understand that there might come a man wise enough +to eschew vain flatteries and all the ordinary allurements of the +vulgar fortune-hunter, and yet designing enough to spread his +nets for any heiress worthy of his ambition.</p> + +<p class='c008'>In his conversation with the simple-minded Rosa he affected +the sentiments of a confirmed misogynist.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“If there were such a possibility as a sensible woman,” he +said, “I might perhaps hope to end my days in the bosom of a +family; but since the age of miracles is past, I resign myself to +the idea of remaining a lonely wanderer until the day of my +death.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Thus, half in despondency, half in bitterness, Roderick +Lowther replied to some leading remark of Miss Grunderson’s. +She called him a horrid man and a dreadful creature: but she +admired him amazingly notwithstanding, and she felt a seraphic +happiness in listening to this delightful cynical being, to the +utter neglect of Meyerbeer.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“With the exception of public characters,” mused the market-gardener’s +daughter, “I don’t think I was ever <em>really</em> in love +until now.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>And thus it fell out that, when Mrs. Tredethlyn said, in the +course of the evening, that she was going to spend the following +day at Twickenham, Rosa gave such broad hints about the +loveliness of the weather, and the delights of suburban scenery, +that good-natured Maude promised to take her down for a long +afternoon among the roses in the dear old garden where so much +of her own happy youth had been idled away.</p> + +<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_255'>255</span>“Are droppers-in to be permitted in your Arcadia, ladies?” +demanded Harcourt; “and will the balls and mallets be considered +out of place upon the lawn by the river?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>This was quite enough for Miss Grunderson, who cried out +directly that of all things in the world she admired croquet, and +that “Par” had bought her a set of Cremer’s most exquisite +walnut-wood balls and mallets. There were times when the +vivacious Rosa called her indulgent parent “Par,” in spite of +those half-dozen annual accounts which he had paid for the +young lady’s education.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I shall so enjoy a game of croquet in a real garden!” cried +Rosa. “We play it in the square sometimes; but the little +boys and the bakers’ and butchers’ young men outside the rails +are so dreadfully trying, especially when the balls won’t go +where one wants them, owing to nervousness; and I’m sure it’s +enough to make anybody nervous to have a strange chimney-sweep +calling out, ‘Well done, butter-fingers!’ if one drops a +mallet; and <em>that</em> square-keeper is never within sight when +wanted.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Does Tredethlyn go with you to-morrow?” asked Harcourt +Lowther presently; he had been very thoughtful for the last +few minutes.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“No,” Maude answered, rather sadly. “I asked Frank to +drive me down in the mail-phaeton; but he told me he was +going a little way out of town on business.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>She was thinking how very great a change had come to pass +since her husband had been her adoring slave, only too happy +to follow wherever she pleased to lead him. Now there was no +quarrel, no actual misunderstanding between them; but there +was quite a wide breach, as if they had agreed to separate after +a long series of domestic battles.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Roderick and I will come down to the Cedars to-morrow,” +said Harcourt, bending over Maude’s chair, “unless you forbid +us to do so. The river is delightful just now, and you may +want the services of a couple of boatmen.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“We shall be very glad to see you, if you like to come,” +Mrs. Tredethlyn answered, carelessly. Looking up just then, +she saw Miss Grunderson’s round eyes fixed upon her with a +very earnest expression. Rosa had heard all sorts of insinuations +respecting Mr. Lowther’s constant attendance upon Mrs. +Tredethlyn, and the young lady was wondering whether her +darling Maude did really deserve any of the reprobation that +had been showered upon her as a flirting matron.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“There’s a way of saying ‘How do you do?’ or ‘Pretty +well, thanks,’ that seems like flirting,” mused Miss Grunderson; +“and Mr. Lowther always has that way when he talks to Mrs. +Tredethlyn. I <em>know</em> she is too good to be a flirt, in spite of all +<span class='pageno' id='Page_256'>256</span>those malicious people may say about her; and I don’t like +Harcourt Lowther a bit, for <em>he</em> must know how his flirting +manner is talked about, though she doesn’t. I’ve seen half-a-dozen +opera-glasses turned this way to-night, just because he’s +been bending over her chair in that whispering way of his. And +yet he has only been talking of croquet.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Rosa’s friendship was quite as ardent as her love, and much +more lasting. Mrs. Tredethlyn’s gentleness had quite subdued +that affectionate little heart, and the market-gardener’s daughter +would have been willing to make any effort in her friend’s service. +She was a very energetic little girl, with a good deal of +that moral courage which is sometimes wanting in more delicate +natures. To put the fact in her own words, Rosa was able to +speak her mind, and to speak it very freely too, whenever the +occasion called for candour.</p> + +<p class='c008'>The next day was one of the brightest in a brilliant July, and +Mrs. Tredethlyn’s shell-shaped barouche was waiting before the +ponderous stuccoed portico at eleven o’clock. Francis had left +the house half an hour before on foot, bent on that mysterious +expedition a little way out of town which he took so frequently +now. Maude and Julia came down-stairs at a quarter after +eleven; and Miss Grunderson skipped up the stone steps two +minutes afterwards, with the bluest bonnet and the pinkest +parasol in London.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“How do you like the new contrast?” she inquired, twirling +the pink parasol triumphantly, when she had adjusted her +flounces and furbelows to the best of her ability on the front +seat of Mrs. Tredethlyn’s carriage. “I remember, when I was +at school, pink and blue together were thought bad taste, but +now they’re quite <i>de rigger</i>. Ness pas ker say joli dong? +s’p’tite ombrelle?” demanded Miss Grunderson, bursting into +French. “Vingt-huit shillings, ma chère! Ness pas trèscher, +chère? Et le boutiquier ne voudrait pas prendre un six-sous là +dessous, quoique je l’ai marchandé comme un juif,” she added, +with a slap-dash rendering of the language which was peculiar +to her.</p> + +<p class='c008'>The summer day was delightful, and Maude’s spirits, which +had been rather depressed of late, rose with the sunshine and +the pure air, as the high-stepping bays left Stuccoville behind +them for the pleasant country road, and the rustic odours of +suburban gardens. And then, when she found herself amongst +her own birds and flower-beds, it was hard to believe that she +was no longer a girl, with a girl’s careless happiness in beautiful +things. She sat under a great drooping willow, whose lowest +branches dipped into the water, and watched her dogs gambolling +with Rosa on the grass.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I was like that, once,” she thought, “before I knew of +<span class='pageno' id='Page_257'>257</span>papa’s difficulties—before I sold myself for money. I fancied +that it was a heroic thing to marry the man I did not love, in +the hope that my esteem might be some poor repayment of his +generous devotion—his noble trust in my father. But I know +now that I could do him no baser wrong than become his wife. +I know it now, when he himself has learnt to despise and to +avoid me, even when I am anxious to win back his regard.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Yes, it had come to this. Maude Tredethlyn deeply felt her +husband’s palpable avoidance of her. So long as he had been +slavishly devoted, she had been just a little inclined to despise +him; but now that the treasure of an honest man’s love seemed +to have slipped away from her, she awoke to the consciousness +that it was a treasure, and that she had need to be unhappy in +the loss of a jewel that is not given to every woman to possess. +She sickened at the thought of the wealth which her marriage +had given her, now that it was unsanctified by the love of the +giver. Was it gone, that devoted affection which she had held +so lightly while it was hers to throw away? She began to +understand now how delicate a thing a heart is, even when it +beats beneath the rudest breast, and how soon it withers under +the blighting influence of disdain. Yes, she had been faithfully +loved by an honest man who would have given his very life for +her happiness, and she had trifled with his love until it was lost. +Queen Guinivere has only one set of diamonds to throw into +the river; and when the passion has passed in whose hot impulse +she flung them away, the lady is apt to regret her lost jewels.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Miss Desmond and Miss Grunderson trifled with the balls +and mallets, while Maude wandered listlessly on the terrace +thinking of the breach between herself and her husband. She +was still lingering there alone, when Harcourt and Roderick +Lowther strolled from the drawing-room on to the lawn. The +eldest set about instructing Julia Desmond and Miss Grunderson +with regard to the latest and most intricate by-laws of +croquet; and the younger made his way at once to the terrace +where Maude was walking listlessly and slowly under a coquettish +white umbrella.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Harcourt Lowther took care that Mrs. Tredethlyn had no +more time for solitary musing. He brought all his talents to +bear to keep her amused, and by the aid of fashionable small-talk, +sharp little criticisms on new books, croquet, luncheon, +and an incursion among Mr. Hillary’s hothouses, he contrived +to chase the shadow of care quite away from the young wife’s +girlish brow. It was about four o’clock, and the afternoon had +lapsed into a sultry sleepy brightness that was almost oppressive +even in that green retreat beside the river, when the two +gentlemen suggested the water.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Of all things in the world the most delightful!” screamed +<span class='pageno' id='Page_258'>258</span>Miss Grunderson. “Oh, do please take us out in one of those +darling little dangerous-looking boats I saw in the Swiss boat-house +down there. And oh, what a pity I didn’t wear a hat +instead of this odious blue bonnet, which is beginning to fly +already!” said Rosa, looking despondently at the expansive +ribands fluttering below her double chin, which had lost some +little of their azure intensity under the influence of the July +sun. To Miss Grunderson’s great delight, the two gentlemen +proceeded forthwith to the boat-house, and lowered a couple of +wherries, as perfect in their way as any craft that ever came +out of the hands of Messrs. Messenger. Harcourt placed Mrs. +Tredethlyn and Julia Desmond in one of these boats, and to +the other descended Miss Grunderson, with more small shrieks +of terror and feminine skirmishing, and a greater display of +Balmoral boots and embroidered flounces than was absolutely +necessary to the embarkation.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I never get into a boat without thinking I shall be drowned,” +said Rosa, plumping down upon the cushions, and all but upsetting +herself at the first start; “the water does give way so. +But if one <em>was</em> drowned, it would be rather nice to have a +paragraph all to one’s self in the daily newspapers, or perhaps +what pa calls a social leader, beginning with something about +the Moloch Pleasure having swallowed another victim, and +Youth at the prow and Pleasure at the helm, and the Pale +Horse, and so on.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>And then Miss Grunderson, finding herself quite alone with +the latest object of her adoration, exerted all her small fascinations +to beguile the woman-hater from his stern aversion to +her sex. She chattered as gaily as some talking-bird; and +Roderick Lowther, who imagined that he had by this time +established himself firmly as a disinterested individual, condescended +to make himself agreeable, and to drift into that pleasant +current of meaningless small-talk which malicious people +call flirtation.</p> + +<p class='c008'>While Roderick rowed his fair companion swiftly past the +verdant bank, Harcourt let his boat drift slowly down with the +current, only dipping his oars now and then in the intervals of +his discourse. Maude had forgotten her troubled reverie upon +the terrace, and gave herself up to the enjoyment of all the old +talk about books and music, poetry and painting, which had +been so delicious to her in those departed days when she and +Harcourt had drifted down that same river plighted husband +and wife. There is no monitor so sharp as rural nature when +we have need to be reminded of our inconstancy. Looking at +those reedy banks, those tranquil gardens sloping to a tranquil +tide, Maude found it almost difficult to believe in the changes +of her life since she had first floated down that stream, a child, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_259'>259</span>with wild-flowers in her lap, and her little bare arm hanging +across the edge of the boat, for the infantile pleasure of +splashing.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Harcourt Lowther found his brother’s boat moored to a little +quay in a shady corner of the river below the Star and Garter, +and the splendid colouring of Miss Grunderson’s toilet made +that young lady conspicuous as she ascended a little pathway +sloping upwards to the terrace, attended by her cavalier. Harcourt +shipped his oars, and proposed a stroll in the Petersham +meadows. Maude looked at her watch; it was a quarter to +five, and Mr. Hillary’s dinner-hour was half-past seven. There +was plenty of time for a stroll across those verdant meadows, +and Mrs. Tredethlyn, having the interval to dispose of somehow, +had only to choose in wasting it in this way or in some other +fashion. Harcourt had his wish therefore. He assisted the +two ladies to disembark, gave his coat into the custody of one +of the lounging watermen at the rustic landing-stage, and then +strolled with his two companions into the meadows leading towards +Petersham.</p> + +<p class='c008'>There is little need to tell the English reader what Petersham +is like. Almost everybody knows that rural cluster of modern +villas and grand old red brick mansions nestling so comfortably +under the shadow of Richmond Hill. Surely the next best +thing to inhabiting Earl Russell’s house in Richmond Park, or +that magic château of Monsieur Fould’s, hidden deep in the +woody heart of grand old St. Germain’s, would be to own one +of those Georgian mansions at Petersham, with cool fishponds +and shady gardens, long ranges of narrow windows, and a +marble-paved vestibule, with a ceiling by Thornhill, and old +family portraits by polite Sir Joshua himself. It was the afternoon +of afternoons for listless dawdling about such a place as +Petersham, and Mr. Lowther and the two ladies were alike +enthusiastic in their admiration of the Georgian mansions.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I wish Francis would buy a nice old house down here,” said +Maude. “I am so tired of London; it is all the same thing +over, and over, and over again; the same flock of sheep jumping +through the same gap in the same hedge, and not one of them—no, +not even the leader—knowing why they do it. I should +be near papa here, and all my old friends. In town I seem to +know everybody, and yet not to have a single friend.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>There was a rustic bench in the lane through which they +were walking as Maude said this. The two ladies sat down to +rest for a few minutes, and Harcourt Lowther took out his +cigar-case.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I shall leave you just long enough to smoke a cigarette,” he +said, “and then I will take you back to the water-side by a still +prettier road, if you like.”</p> + +<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_260'>260</span>He went away at a leisurely pace, lighting his cigar as he +went; but he walked a good deal faster when he was out of +Maude Tredethlyn’s ken, and he was flushed with heat when he +returned after a quarter of an hour’s absence.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Now, ladies,” he said, “if we are not to keep Mr. Hillary +waiting for his dinner, it is high time for us to go back to the +boat.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Maude and Julia rose, and the little party strolled into the +road at the end of the lane in the straggling order usual to +people who walk for their own pleasure in a country village. +Mrs. Tredethlyn’s white umbrella was a little way ahead of her +companions, when Harcourt Lowther laid his gloved hand lightly +upon Julia’s shoulder.</p> + +<p class='c008'>She looked up at him, startled by the gesture.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“You have had some reason to complain of your friend Miss +Hillary and Francis Tredethlyn,” he said. “I am going to give +you your revenge.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Julia stared in amazement at the speaker; but he did not +wait to be interrogated.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Come, Mrs. Tredethlyn,” he said, “your papa will have to +wait for his dinner, unless you walk a little faster.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>He had not much reason to complain of Maude, who had +been ahead of him until this moment, but he hurried her along +the dusty road until, at a spot where it curved round to the +river, he stopped suddenly, pointing to a cottage-garden, seen +through the iron rails of a high old-fashioned gate set in a +framework of clematis.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Look at that, Mrs. Tredethlyn! Isn’t it a pretty picture?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>It was a little rustic <span lang="fr"><i>tableau</i></span> composed of two figures grouped +under a mulberry-tree,—a delicate-looking woman, with soft +brown hair, touched here and there with a glimmer of gold, +seated on a rustic bench. Her face was turned away from the +road, and she was looking up at a man who leaned against +the trunk of a tree. It was only a glimpse of this picture which +Maude caught between the iron scroll-work of the gate, but she +saw quite enough.</p> + +<p class='c008'>The man was Francis Tredethlyn.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Great Heaven!” exclaimed Harcourt Lowther, in an audible +whisper; “it <em>is</em> Francis!”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Maude looked at him with a vague alarm in her face, which +had grown almost as white as the umbrella that sheltered it. +Harcourt’s whisper had frightened her a hundredfold more than +the sight of her husband, at home in that unknown garden +with a woman she had never seen or heard of.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Who is that lady?” she asked, when they had passed the +gate. “Do you know her, Mr. Lowther? You know all my +husband’s associates much better than I do.”</p> + +<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_261'>261</span>She tried to speak quite calmly, but failed miserably in the +effort. Harcourt’s whisper had expressed so much.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“No, I do not know the lady,” he answered, gravely. “I +think you had better make no inquiries about her. Mr. +Tredethlyn did not tell you that he was to spend the day at +Petersham?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“No. He only said that he was going a little way out of +town.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Then in that case it will be better for you to leave him to +finish his day as he pleases, since you have made no arrangement +for meeting him here, and do not know the lady.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Maude did not answer him just then. She walked on a little +faster than before; and Harcourt kept by her side, looking furtively +every now and then at the pale profile, the tremulous +lower lip. He could see that Mrs. Tredethlyn was profoundly +agitated, and that she was trying to conceal her agitation. He +could see this; and he was determined to make her speak, and +speak freely.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“She is not the sort of woman to suffer in silence,” he +thought. “This kind of trouble is new to her, and she will cry +out presently.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Mr. Lowther was not very much at fault in his estimate of +Maude’s heroism. She spoke to him when they were a few paces +from Julia, whose face was lighted by a look of triumph under +her gauzy veil.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“You say you do not know that lady. You must at least +know who she is?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>This was said in a tone of almost piteous entreaty.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Upon my honour, no,” Harcourt answered, gravely.</p> + +<p class='c008'>There was a pause for some moments. They were in one of +the meadows by this time, nearing the water’s edge, Julia still +in the rear, and Maude still walking very fast, as it is the +habit of most people to walk under the influence of agitation. +Perhaps in that unreasoning, unnecessary haste, there lurks a +vague fancy that we can hurry <em>away</em> from our trouble.</p> + +<p class='c008'>All at once Maude turned to Harcourt Lowther and laid her +hand upon his arm.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Tell me what it all means,” she cried,—“tell me the worst, +however bad it is. I know that you are hiding something from +me. I know by your manner just now that there is some +horrible meaning in Frank’s presence in that garden with that +woman.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“My dear Mrs. Tredethlyn, you ask me to interfere in a +matter which I have no right to approach. It may be everything +to you where your husband goes,—whom he associates +with. I have been his friend,—for your sake; and I have done +my best to steer him clear of dangerous acquaintance and dangerous +<span class='pageno' id='Page_262'>262</span>amusements—still for your sake. I may have found it +a hard matter to keep him out of mischief, and may have regretted +the natural tendencies of his character—always for your +sake. Beyond this I can have nothing to do with him. I had +good reason for being sorry when you married him—on my own +account. Of late I have been even more sorry—on yours.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Maude looked at him, white and trembling. The schemer was +pleased to see what deadly mischief had been done, and yet +stung to the very heart to find that any falsehood of his victim’s +could wound so deeply. There are triumphs which have a +shadow of humiliation upon their brightness, and this was one +of them. Julia, seeing that her companions were loitering, +seated herself on the lower step of a stile. She had no desire +to interrupt this conversation.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Speak to me plainly,” Mrs. Tredethlyn cried, passionately, +“or I will go back to that cottage and ask my husband himself +for an explanation. Perhaps that would be best. He has +a better right to explain his conduct than any one else.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>She walked a few paces from her companion; but Harcourt +Lowther followed her, and caught her gently by the arm.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Will Francis Tredethlyn tell you the truth if you question +him?” he asked. “My dear Mrs. Tredethlyn, how could you +endure the <span lang="fr"><i>esclandre</i></span> of such a scene as <em>must</em> ensue if you go +back to that house, and confront your husband in the presence +of that woman?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Why should there be a scene, or any <span lang="fr"><i>esclandre</i></span>? The lady +may be the wife or daughter of some friend of my husband’s. +Have I any right to imagine something horrible because I see +Frank with a person who is a stranger to me? It was only +your manner that frightened me.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I am very sorry my manner was so foolish. Let us drop the +subject. Only—take my advice—don’t go back to that house.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Why should I not, if my husband is innocent? as I am +sure he is.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Mr. Lowther shrugged his shoulders.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Because it is an unpleasant thing to intrude where one is +not invited,” he answered. “Whatever questions you wish to +ask your husband can be reserved until you are both at home; +and in the meantime pray let the matter drop. Believe me, it +is not a fit subject for discussion between you and me.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>There are lawyers who generally inaugurate a consultation +by advising their clients not to go to law. They know it is a +very safe display of magnanimity. It is only the old story of +standing on the shore to reason with a tempestuous ocean, or +interfering with the appetite of a famished wolf in favour of the +lamb on which he means to dine. To try to restrain a woman +whose jealousy has once been aroused from any investigation of +<span class='pageno' id='Page_263'>263</span>her fancied wrongs, is no less wasted labour; and Harcourt +Lowther knew quite enough of human nature to be very sure +of this.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Mrs. Tredethlyn turned upon him fiercely. He had never +seen the woman he loved in a passion until this moment; +and though he had so much else to employ his thoughts just +now, he could not help pausing for a moment to think now +beautiful she looked with that new light in her eyes, that +feverish glow so suddenly kindled in the cheeks that had been +deadly pale.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I will not let the matter drop,” she cried. “You are keeping +some hideous secret hidden from me. I know you are. I +could not be mistaken in your tone just now when you saw +Francis in that garden. If there were no harm in his being +there, why should you express such amazement? Harcourt +Lowther, we were friends once, and you affect to be my friend +now. If you are what you pretend to be, tell me the meaning +of my husband’s conduct?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“You love him very much, Maude, to feel his conduct so +deeply.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>She was too agitated to notice that her old lover had called +her by her Christian name. He had perhaps been scarcely +aware of it himself. He loved her better at this moment than +he had ever loved her in his life, now that she stood before him +a beautiful, angry, passionate creature, appealing to him against +the husband for whose sake he had been jilted.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“You must be very much in love with your husband,” he +repeated, bitterly; “and yet I should have scarcely thought it +possible you could care for that sort of person.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“He <em>is</em> my husband,” answered Maude, “and I have a right +to be angry if he does any wrong.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I acknowledge your right to be as angry as you please, but +I am sorry to see you so agitated. I am very sorry we happened +to walk this way.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Will you tell me the truth? I have appealed to you by +our old friendship. I shall never again believe in you as a +friend unless you speak plainly to-day.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“If you say <em>that</em>, you oblige me to speak. Will you take +my arm, and walk up and down by the hedge yonder? I see +people coming into the meadow, and we look rather conspicuous +standing just here.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Mrs. Tredethlyn accepted the proffered arm. Harcourt +Lowther was silent for some moments, while they strolled +slowly under the shadow of a tall hawthorn hedge. He was +waiting until Maude should have recovered some little calmness, +and be in a condition to appreciate the full value of what +he was going to say.</p> + +<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_264'>264</span>“It would be going over very old ground, and awakening +very bitter recollections—on my part, at least,” he began at +last, in a subdued and pensive tone, “were I to tell you what +I thought of your marriage with Francis Tredethlyn. When +I thought of it most mildly, I believed it the maddest sacrifice +that was ever made to the Moloch Wealth since this world +began. You had your reasons, you told me, and they were +very powerful reasons, but they were to be kept a secret. I had +no more to say. All I could do was to hope that you might +not be utterly miserable with the man you married—to my +mind, the man of all others least adapted to make you a happy +wife. I should have done well had I been wise enough to keep +aloof from you and your husband after that unhappy marriage. +I was so mad as to hang about your house, and accept the +friendship of my rival, in the belief that I might save the +vessel wherein you had embarked from some of those rocks +which I saw a little ahead of the calm bay whence you sailed, +with all the stereotyped paraphernalia of pennants flying and +guns firing. I <em>have</em> saved you from a good deal; but I have +not been able to change your husband’s nature, and he has +taken his own way in spite of me.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“What do you mean?” Maude demanded, breathlessly.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I cannot, and will not, enter into the details of Francis +Tredethlyn’s life for the last twelve months. No, Maude, not +even your entreaties shall wring from me more than I have a +right to tell, or you to hear. And if I spoke the plainest words +that ever sullied a woman’s ear, I should only be talking a +strange language which would convey no meaning to your +innocent mind. There are places in London whose names you +have never heard in your life—places whose very existence +might never be known to honest people, if men did not write +about them in the newspapers; and amongst the <span lang="fr"><i>habitués</i></span> of +those places your husband has been conspicuous since the first +week of his return from the village where you and he spent +your honeymoon. There are dinners given, up at that hotel +yonder, to women whose costume is an extravagant copy of +yours, but who in everything except their dress differ from you +as entirely as darkness differs from light; and Francis Tredethlyn +has been foremost amongst the dinner-givers ever since +he has had a fortune to squander. So long as he was amused +by open follies and dissipations I cherished a lingering hope that +custom would bring weariness, and that the very monotony of +these poisonous pleasures would render them their own antidote. +I made excuses for the man who had so newly succeeded to a +fortune large enough to intoxicate a weak brain; and I fancied +when the novelty of his wealth had ceased to bewilder him, he +would awake to a bitter sense of the degrading path in which +<span class='pageno' id='Page_265'>265</span>he was treading. I thought this, Maude, and I believed also +that your loveliness, your purity, rendered all the more obvious +by contrast with the people among whom he wasted his life, +must lure him back to your side. How could I think otherwise +than this?—<em>I</em>, who had loved and lost you!”</p> + +<p class='c008'>It never occurred to Mrs. Tredethlyn that these were the very +last words that Harcourt Lowther should have spoken to her, +at this moment above all other moments. It seemed as if she +scarcely heard this allusion to the past, any more than she had +heard her old lover’s frequent utterance of her Christian name.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I think my husband loved me—once,” she murmured in a +low sorrowful voice. “He was so noble in his conduct—so generous +to my father.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“My poor girl,” exclaimed Harcourt, with supreme compassion, +“how should <em>you</em> know the difference between a good +man’s generosity and a profligate’s lavish bid for the fair young +bride who happens to be the fancy of a moment? There are +men who will give as exaggerated a price for a picture as ever +Francis Tredethlyn offered when he won you for his wife; but +you would scarcely call a man ‘generous’ because he bid extravagantly +for a Raffaelle or a Murillo at Christie’s. There is no +creature in this world so selfish as a profligate.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Maude turned sick and cold to the very heart as Mr. Lowther +said this.</p> + +<p class='c008'>A profligate! The horrible word wounded her like the stroke +of a knife. In a moment this innocent girl, who until now had +only known the existence of “profligacy” as an unspeakable +noun substantive hidden away somewhere in the close columns +of unexpurgated dictionaries, felt the veil rudely torn from the +purity of her mind; and was told that her husband—the other +part of herself, united to her by the solemn service of the +Church—was the obnoxious thing which until this hour no one +had ever dared to name in her presence. The generosity she +had believed in was a sham. The noble nature which had commanded +her regard and esteem, even when it could not win her +love, had never existed out of her own imagination. She had +been wronged, betrayed, humiliated; while in her schoolgirl simplicity +she had been lamenting her unworthiness of a devoted +husband’s love. She had been bought for money like a slave +in some Oriental market-place, when she had imagined herself +a free sacrifice offered as the recompense of a sacred debt.</p> + +<p class='c008'>She did not speak; but looking at her face Harcourt Lowther +saw that his words had gone home. The breach between +husband and wife yawned wide enough now. The undermining +of the ground had been slow, laborious work, but the +result repaid this social engineer for all his trouble. With +what a crash the earth fell in when it was time for the convulsion! +<span class='pageno' id='Page_266'>266</span>So some huge mass of Kentish chalk, which sappers +and miners have been manipulating for a month or so, and at +which a crowd of tired spectators have been straining hopelessly +for two hours at a stretch, breaks away all at once from +the bosom of the cliff with a thunderous noise, and crumbles +into powder.</p> + +<p class='c008'>But Mr. Lowther had not finished yet.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I thought I could win you back to your husband, Maude, +and restore him to you a better man,” he said; “but I soon +discovered how futile such a hope was. I have been by his side +in scenes that were horribly repugnant to my own nature, in +order that I might hold him back from the verge of deeper +gulfs than those into which he had already fallen. Within the +last few months I have known that he kept a secret from me, +and I knew that it must be a disgraceful one. Only a few days +ago it came to my knowledge that he had lately furnished a +house somewhere in the suburbs. This gave me a clue to those +mysterious absences, those journeys on business a little way +out of town, about which your husband had been so reticent. +Men of Francis Tredethlyn’s calibre do not furnish houses from +benevolent motives. I had no means of knowing where the +house was,—how little could I imagine that it was in this +neighbourhood, or that accident would lead our footsteps to its +very threshold! Mrs. Tredethlyn, you shall not wring another +word from me. I am sorry that you have tempted me to tell +you so much,” <a id='tn-saidall'></a>exclaimed Mr. Harcourt, who had said all he +wanted to say.</p> + +<p class='c008'>It was a long time before Maude answered him; and then +she said, very slowly, and with a painful effort—</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I thank you—for having told me the truth. It is always +best to know the truth.”</p> + +</div> + +<div class='pbb'> + <hr class='pb c001'> +</div> +<div> + +<div> + <h2 class='c003'><a id='chapter-XXXIII'></a>CHAPTER XXXIII.<br> <br><span class='fss'>ROSA’S REVELATIONS.</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>After this there was no more said between Harcourt Lowther +and Mrs. Tredethlyn upon the subject of her husband’s delinquencies. +They walked slowly back to the stile, where Julia +was sitting as quietly as if she had been that monumental +Patience of whom the poet has told us. There is something +wonderfully expressive in natural pantomime; and Miss Desmond, +sitting on that rustic stile tracing figures from Euclid +on the dusty pathway under her feet with the ivory point of her +parasol, had yet contrived to keep a sharp watch upon those +two people on the other side of the meadow, and to form a +tolerably clear idea as to the gist of their conversation.</p> + +<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_267'>267</span>“Julia dear,” Maude said, wearily, as they walked to the river-side, +“would you mind going back to town as soon as we can +get to the carriage? I have such an intolerable headache, that +I’m sure I shall be quite unfit to dine with papa.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Of course Julia declared that dining in London or at the +Cedars was equally indifferent to her. It was very often her +humour to affect the dull characterless manner of a paid dependant; +and it was her humour to do so just now.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I am afraid Mr. Lowther and I have kept you waiting an +unconscionable time,” said Maude, looking at her watch.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Not at all,” replied Miss Desmond; “I rather like waiting.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Roderick Lowther and Miss Grunderson were loitering at the +little landing-stage; the young lady’s showy draperies pre-Raffaelite +in the sharp edges which she exhibited against the +hot blue sky.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Oh, you darling Mrs. Tredethlyn!” exclaimed Rosa; “I +thought you <em>never were</em> coming. If your pa is half as particular +about his dinner as mine is, won’t he be cross with us +all! It’s close upon seven o’clock!”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Maude looked piteously at Harcourt Lowther. He understood +that appealing glance.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I have given Mrs. Tredethlyn a violent headache by putting +her in an awningless boat under a broiling sun,” he said, “and +then beguiling her into a fatiguing walk; and I deserve to be +horsewhipped for my stupidity. If you have any regard for +your friend’s health, Miss Grunderson, you will forego the pleasure +of dining with Mr. Hillary, and get her home as quietly as +you can.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Rosa Grunderson might be silly, but she was by no means +stupid; and, looking at Maude’s ashen face, she saw that something +more than a headache had caused the change in her +friend. She saw this; and that vague distrust which she felt +about the brother of the man she adored shaped itself into a +positive dislike.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“That Mr. Lowther has been saying something to annoy +her,” thought Miss Grunderson; “and I hate him. What +business has he to be always dancing attendance upon her +instead of her husband? And now he’s not content with getting +her talked about, so he must needs go and make her unhappy, +poor darling.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Thus mused the meditative Rosa, while Roderick Lowther +rowed her homeward over the placid water. The diplomatist’s +fascinations were almost thrown away upon her during this brief +journey from Richmond to the Cedars, although he had progressed +so far in Miss Grunderson’s affections during a leisurely +promenade on the terrace, that he had serious thoughts of +<span class='pageno' id='Page_268'>268</span>calling on Grunderson <span lang="fr"><i>père</i></span> within the week to make a formal +offer for the young lady’s hand and fortune.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I have no idea of wasting my time and trouble upon the +girl, to find myself thrown out at the last moment by the impracticable +parent,” thought Roderick, as he shot through the +water with that long deliberate stroke for which the Oxonians +are celebrated. “I must know exactly where I am, before I +devote myself to the plump Rosa. There must be no nonsense +about settlements and so forth. I won’t have any legal brick +wall and <span lang="fr"><i>chevaux de frise</i></span> between me and my wife’s fortune. A +man doesn’t quarter a cabbage with the arms of the oldest untitled +family in Hampshire without getting well paid for the +humiliation. I must understand what I’m going in for, when I +propose to my charming Rosa.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Lionel Hillary was in the drawing-room <a id='tn-returned'></a>when the water-party +returned to the Cedars; but he accepted his daughter’s assurance +that she was too tired and too ill to dine with him, and escorted +her to her carriage as soon as it was ready for her. Maude was +quite composed now, and there was no suspicion of the truth +aroused in the merchant’s mind when he kissed her and bade +her good-bye.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“It was foolish of you to go on the water in the hottest part +of the day, darling,” he said; “and I’m afraid you are going +out a little too much in town; but the season will soon be over, +and I suppose you will be leaving London.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Mrs. Tredethlyn murmured something unintelligible, and the +barouche rolled away. She saw her father and the two Lowthers +standing on the wide stone steps dimly through a mist, athwart +which the group seemed only a confusion of familiar faces and +dark garments; and then she found herself driving Londonwards +through the still evening, with Julia by her side, and +Rosa’s anxious face opposite to her.</p> + +<p class='c008'>She accepted unquestioningly all that Harcourt Lowther had +told her. Her husband was false to her. There was so much +in Francis Tredethlyn’s life since his marriage which seemed an +evidence of his accuser’s truth. And then Harcourt had not +wished to accuse. The cruel revelation had been extorted from +him. No trouble that Maude had ever yet endured had been +so bitter as that which had come upon her to-day,—the shame, +the humiliation, the unutterable horror of that discovery made +in the summer sunshine, amidst the perfume of flowers, the +joyous carolling of a skylark high up in the warm blue sky. +She did not love her husband; and the agony which gnawed +her breast during this homeward journey was the sharp pang +which belongs to wounded pride rather than to betrayed affection. +At least this was what she said to herself, as she remembered, +with an angry flush upon her brow, those sneering remarks +<span class='pageno' id='Page_269'>269</span>of Mr. Lowther’s about her love for such a man as Francis +Tredethlyn.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I do believe he loved me once, let Harcourt Lowther say +what he will; and he was nobly generous to my father; and +now he deserts me altogether, and devotes himself to some +horrible woman!” thought Mrs. Tredethlyn, whose ideas were +not particularly sequential this evening.</p> + +<p class='c008'>She meditated upon so much as she knew of the life that +Francis had led since the close of his honeymoon. His late +hours, his frequent absences, all seemed to confirm Harcourt’s +account of dissipated habits and degraded tastes.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Yes, everything combined to prove the miserable truth. She +was a neglected wife; abandoned by the man who had once +seemed the veriest slave that ever bowed beneath the supreme +dominion of Love. She remembered what he had been, or what +she had believed him to be, and was all the more indignant with +him for the discoveries of to-day. Rosa Grunderson, anxiously +watching Mrs. Tredethlyn in the twilight, wondered that so +dark a cloud could overshadow the fair face of her friend.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“It must be something very dreadful,” thought Rosa; “but +whatever it is, that Mr. Lowther is at the bottom of it. If +Roderick does propose,—which I’ve every reason to think he +will, from the way he conducted himself on the terrace,—and he +and pa can come to any arrangement about me, I won’t have +much to do with my brother-in-law, that’s certain, for I hate +him. But I dare say those horrid ground-rents will always +stand in the way of my being married to anybody but a Rothschild; +and Rothschilds don’t trouble <em>themselves</em> about ground-rents.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>The drive from Twickenham to Stuccoville is not a very long +one; and Mrs. Tredethlyn’s bays got over the ground at a pace +that did credit to the judgment of Mr. Lowther, who had chosen +the horses for his friend. It was nearly nine o’clock when the +barouche drew up before the Doric colonnade which imparted a +funereal darkness to Maude’s dining-room; and before the three +ladies could alight, a hansom cab dashed up to the kerbstone, a +pair of slamming doors were flung open, and Francis Tredethlyn +sprang out upon the pavement.</p> + +<p class='c008'>His wife’s face flushed crimson, and then grew deadly pale. +She turned to Rosa Grunderson, and murmured in faint, broken +accents: “Will you dine with us, Rosa? or shall Martin drive +you home?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Thank you, darling,” Miss Grunderson answered promptly; +“I think I’ll come in for just a few moments. Pa will have +gone to the Bell and—to his club by this time,” added Rosa, +whose parent was wont to spend his evenings in the parlour of +a very respectable tavern in the Brompton Road, where he and +<span class='pageno' id='Page_270'>270</span>several other worthies assembled nightly to discuss the affairs +of the nation amidst the fumes of their cigars, the primitive clay +being strictly tabooed in that select little coterie.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Maude alighted and entered the hall. Francis had handed +her from the carriage, and followed her into the house. He +threw away his cigar as he stepped into the hall, and approached +his wife radiant with good spirits and perfumed with tobacco.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I’m so glad you’ve come home,” he said. “I thought you +were going to dine with the governor, and that I should have to +sit in that dreary room all by myself, with only Landseer’s staghounds +to keep me company; though if half the people one calls +company were as much alive as <em>they</em> are, a dinner-party wouldn’t +be such a dismal business as it is. Of course you haven’t dined; +no more have I; and unfortunately there doesn’t seem to be any +dinner,” added Mr. Tredethlyn, as he opened the door and looked +into the dining-room, where the table was blank and ghastly +under a faint glimmer of gas. “No one was expected, I suppose? +However, they can get us something. Geoffreys, just see about +dinner, will you? How do you do, Miss Grunderson? I dare say +you’re hungry after your drive. Are you going up-stairs, Maude?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Yes,” answered Mrs. Tredethlyn. The syllable had a startling +effect as it fell from her lips, like one solitary drop of hail +falling suddenly on a summer day.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I am going up-stairs,” said Miss Desmond confidentially to +Rosa; “will you come with me, and take off your things?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“No, thanks, dear,” answered Miss Grunderson, who would +have endured tortures rather than say “thank you,” when +fashion required that she should say “thanks.” “I don’t +think I <em>will</em> take off my things. Mrs. Tredethlyn doesn’t seem +very well; and it’s almost too late for dinner; so I think I’ll +just go up to the morning-room, and rest for a few minutes +before I go home. The carriage needn’t be kept, you know, +please,” added Miss Grunderson, to a male domestic hovering +in the shadowy depths of the hall; “for I can have a cab fetched +when I want to go.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Mr. Tredethlyn had followed his wife to the drawing-room; +and the two girls standing at the foot of the staircase heard one +of the doors close with a sonorous bang.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Miss Desmond went up-stairs, and Miss Grunderson followed +slowly. The morning-room of which Rosa had spoken was on +the second floor; but the young lady did not go any farther +than the first landing-place. The door of the front drawing-room +was closed, but the doors of the back drawing-room stood +wide open; and peering into the lighted apartment, Rosa saw +that it was quite empty. She paused for a moment, looked +about her; and then went quietly into the back drawing-room, +and closed the door very softly behind her.</p> + +<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_271'>271</span>Francis Tredethlyn followed his wife to the drawing-room +because that one frozen syllable, together with the strange expression +of her face, had been quite enough to tell him that +something was wrong. This husband and this wife had never +quarrelled. There had been between them none of those little +stormy passages which are apt to interrupt the serenity of the +best-regulated households; and the Cornishman’s heart turned +cold with the thought that anything like ill-feeling could arise +between himself and Maude. The altered expression of her face +boded so much; and yet what could arise to displease her, +when he was nothing but her devoted slave, ready to obey her +commands, <a id='tn-verylife'></a>willing to lay down his very life for her pleasure?</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Maude,” he said, as he closed the drawing-room door, +“you speak to me and look at me as if you were offended. +And yet I have no consciousness of having done anything to +displease you.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Mrs. Tredethlyn looked at her husband with supreme contempt; +not the cool scorn which is akin to indifference, but +rather a passionate disdainfulness. Taking into consideration +the fact that Maude did not care for her husband, all this feminine +rage seemed a sad waste of feeling.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Do not add hypocrisy to the wrong you have done me,” +said Mrs. Tredethlyn. “I have been most cruelly awakened +this day to a knowledge of the life you have been leading—ever +since our marriage. I cannot speak of this subject; it is +too horrible; I think the words would choke me. I thought +that I should have been able to write what I had to tell you; +but since I have been so unfortunate as to meet you, I may as +well say with my own lips what I meant to have said in a +letter. It is very little. I have only to tell you that from +this moment we must be strangers to each other. After my +discoveries of to-day, I should consider myself a base and +degraded creature if I ever suffered your hand to touch mine +in friendship again. The obligation of my father’s debt to +you must rest upon him henceforward, and not upon me.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“But, Maude, explain yourself!—your discovery of to-day, +you say! What discovery?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Your affectation of unconsciousness is a deeper insult +than your⸺No, I will <em>not</em> discuss this subject with you!” cried +Maude, passionately. “It is shameful—it is cruel—that I should +have been wronged so basely, when I trusted you so completely. +Do not speak to me; do not touch me!” she exclaimed, shrinking +away from him with a shudder; “your presence inspires me +with disgust and abhorrence. Why do you make any poor +pretence of inhabiting this house, which has only afforded you +an ostensible shelter, while your amusements and your friends +have been found elsewhere? I set you free from this hour, Mr. +<span class='pageno' id='Page_272'>272</span>Tredethlyn. Seek for happiness after your own fashion; where +you please. I have nothing more to say to you.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>She swept from the room before her husband could arrest +her. Unspeakably bewildered by her passionate words, which +were almost meaningless to him, Francis Tredethlyn stood +motionless as a statue a few paces from the doorway by which +his wife had just left him. He was standing thus when the +voluminous curtains which were drawn across the archway +between the drawing-rooms were cautiously divided, and a +plump little figure in blue muslin appeared among the amber +drapery. The Cornishman heard the rustling, and turned +abruptly towards the <span lang="fr"><i>portière</i></span>.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Yes,” exclaimed Miss Grunderson, “it’s me; no, it’s I!—but, +goodness gracious, what <em>does</em> it matter about grammar, +when there’s so much trouble in the world?—yes, and I’ve been +listening,” continued the young lady, answering Mr. Tredethlyn’s +inquiring stare; “and I know that listening in a general way is +considered mean; but I think the amount of pa’s ground-rents +ought to exempt me from any imputation of meanness. If I +didn’t love that sweet lamb so dearly; and if I hadn’t a very +sincere regard for you, Mr. Tredethlyn,—having come into +money suddenly myself, and knowing how trying it is to carry +it off carelessly, and not look as if one was always conscious +of being richer than other people;—if I didn’t—in short, I +shouldn’t have stopped behind those curtains,—and run the +risk of being considered a sneak and a listener. But do say that +you forgive me, please, and believe that I meant it for the +best?” pleaded Rosa, whose diction was apt to become rather +obscure under the influence of excitement.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“What, in Heaven’s name, does it all mean, Miss Grunderson?” +asked Francis, piteously.</p> + +<p class='c008'>He was ready to cling to the frailest spar by which he might +float on the wide ocean of perplexity, whose billows had so suddenly +encompassed him.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Goodness gracious knows—<em>I</em> don’t any more than the dead +though if there <em>is</em> anything in drawing-room tables balancing +themselves on tip-toe and great-coats flying about the room like +awkward birds the dead may know more than we give them +credit for,” exclaimed the lively Rosa, without a single stop; +“but it’s very certain there is something wrong, and whatever +it is, that Mr. Lowther is at the bottom of it.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Harcourt Lowther?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Yes. My pa hears a great deal of gossip at the Bell and—at +clubs, and such places; and he always tells me everything he +hears. And oh, Mr. Tredethlyn, if you knew how long I have +wished to speak my mind to you, I am sure you would forgive +me for listening just now.”</p> + +<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_273'>273</span>“My dear Miss Grunderson, what could you have to say to +me?” asked the bewildered Cornishman.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Oh, lots of things. But then you know the grand maxim +in society is that you <em>mustn’t</em> speak your mind. It’s like that +Latin person’s rule of nil thingamy; you mustn’t admire any +thing, you know; and so on. And one must unlearn all one’s +Catechism, about loving one’s neighbour as oneself, and doing +unto others as one would they should—which always reminds +me of a winter Sunday afternoon at school and broken chilblains, +because one <em>did</em> break once while I was saying it. And +you see in society the thing is to let your neighbour go his way +and to go yours, and to say, ‘Bless my soul! exactly as I anticipated; +paw creatchaw!’ if your neighbour tumbles over a +precipice, from which it would be the very worst of bad manners +to hold him back; and in society, if you saw the good Samaritan—no, +the other person—lying wounded in the road, it would be +a dreadful <em>incon</em>—what it’s name?—to pick him up and take +him to an inn and pay for his lodging, because he might call you +to account for your impertinent officiousness as soon as he got +well. So, though I have been bursting to speak my mind +almost ever since I’ve known you, Mr. Tredethlyn, I’ve held +my tongue until to-night. But to-night the climax has come, +and I <em>must</em> speak. Oh, you poor dear thing!” cried Rosa, in +a sudden outburst of sympathy, “how you and your wife have +been talked about!”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Talked about!—by whom, when, and where?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“By everybody, always, everywhere. You don’t know—though +you ought to know, if you ever listened to what was +going on around you—how people <em>do</em> talk. They’ve talked +about your dissipation, the hours you have kept, the places you +have been seen at, the people you have been seen with; about +your coming home in hansom cabs in the middle of the night; +and I think if quieter vehicles could be invented for people who +stay out late, or at least the doors made to open differently, +there wouldn’t <em>be</em> so much scandal. They’ve talked about your +getting <em>tipsy</em>,” exclaimed Rosa, shaking her head solemnly, and +laying a tremendous stress upon the obnoxious word; “and +they’ve said you were drinking yourself into an early grave, and +that Harcourt Lowther was leading you on to your death in +order that he might marry your wife afterwards.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Harcourt lead me—to my death—and—marry Maude! Oh, +no, no, no; it is too horrible!” gasped Francis, staring at Miss +Grunderson, with his head clasped in his hands, and big beads +of perspiration upon his brow.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I know it is,” answered Rosa; “but they say it; and you +must own it was not a wise thing for you to be so very intimate +<span class='pageno' id='Page_274'>274</span>with a man who was engaged to your wife before you married +her.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Engaged to my wife! <em>Who</em> was engaged to my wife?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Why, Harcourt Lowther, of course! Didn’t you know all +about it?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“No, so help me Heaven!”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Miss Grunderson looked very grave. All that she had said +had been spoken in perfect good faith; but, all at once, she +began to see that mischief might come of this free utterance of +her thoughts.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I thought that you knew it,” she stammered in considerable +confusion, “or I’m sure I should never have said one word +about⸺”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“How did <em>you</em> come to know it?” asked Francis, turning +fiercely upon the terrified Rosa.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Miss Desmond told me.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“It is a lie, a malicious lie, invented by Julia Desmond!”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I dare say it <em>is</em> something in the way of a story,” responded +Miss Grunderson, who was very anxious to extinguish the +sudden conflagration which her unconscious hand had fired; +“people <em>do</em> tell such stories, you know; not that I think Miss +Desmond would speak so positively unless—but I’m sure if Mrs. +Tredethlyn <em>was</em> ever engaged to Mr. Lowther, she had quite +forgotten him when she married you; only <em>if</em> it was so, I don’t +think it was quite honourable of him to be so friendly with you +without telling you all about it.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Thus Miss Grunderson—floundering helplessly in a conversational +quagmire—endeavoured to undo any mischief which +her indiscretion might have made. But Francis was not listening +to her; he was thinking of all his life during the last year, +and a host of trifling circumstances recurred to his mind, in +evidence against the wife he had loved, and the friend he had +trusted.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Yes,” he thought, as he sank moodily down into the nearest +chair, and covered his face with his hands, as heedless of Miss +Grunderson’s presence as if that young lady had been one of her +father’s cabbages,—“yes, it is no lie of Julia Desmond’s. A +hundred recollections arise in my mind to bear witness to its +truth. Maude’s confession about the some one whom she had +loved, but whose poverty was a hindrance to a marriage with +her. Harcourt Lowther’s letters from that beautiful heiress, +whose father’s wealth stood between him and happiness. I +knew that they had known each other before he sailed for Van +Diemen’s Land; but I believed him implicitly when he told me +casually one day that they had never been more than the most +indifferent acquaintances. He had a careless, half-contemptuous +<span class='pageno' id='Page_275'>275</span>way of talking of my wife that galled me to the quick, and +that I have sometimes resented. Fool and dupe that I was! +That affected cynicism, that pretended indifference, was only +a part of his scheme. He loved her all the time; and while +with one hand he pushed me away from her into the drunken +orgies that only kill a little more slowly than the secret doses +of the assassin, with the other he held fast the chain that +bound him to her; waiting till he should be able to say, ‘You +are free, and I claim the fulfilment of your broken promise. +You are enriched by the death of the poor dupe who loved you, +and poverty need separate us no longer.’ Oh, God of Heaven, +what a fool I have been! and how clearly I can see my folly, +now when it is too late! False wife, false friend! so deeply, +fondly loved, so blindly trusted. I can remember my wife’s +face the day she spoke to me of Harcourt Lowther. Has she +been in the base plot against me? No, I will not believe it. If +I have been this man’s blind dupe, his helpless tool, she may +have been as blind, as helpless as myself. O God, give me +strength to trust her still, for my heart must break if she is +base and cruel.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>A man’s ideas are not apt to arrange themselves very consecutively +at such a time; but it was something after this fashion +that Francis Tredethlyn reflected upon his friend’s treachery, +while Rosa stood by watching him very anxiously, with that +fiery eagerness which had prompted her to speak her mind considerably +cooled down by the aspect of her companion’s distress.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Miss Grunderson,” said Francis presently, “whatever the +world may have said against Harcourt Lowther, it is a false +and lying world if it ever slandered the goodness and purity of +my wife.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I know that,” answered Rosa, becoming energetic once +more; “for of all the sweet darlings that ever were, she’s the +sweetest and the dearest. And how should <em>she</em> know that people +made nasty disagreeable remarks about Mr. Lowther’s always +happening to go to the parties she went to and calling here +oftener than other people, and so on⸺”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“He went to parties!” cried Francis. “He told me that he +hated parties; that he scarcely went anywhere.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Ah, but he did, though; and it has been his flirting way—not +the things he has said, you know, but his way or saying +them—his <i>ompressmong</i>, you know, that has caused those ill-natured +remarks about Mrs. Tredethlyn. Nothing sets people +talking like <i>ompressmong</i>.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Francis did not answer. Little by little the mists cleared +away from his mental vision; and he saw that Harcourt Lowther +had been from first to last the subtlest schemer who ever +plotted the ruin of an honest blockhead. It had needed only +<span class='pageno' id='Page_276'>276</span>Miss Grunderson’s feminine guesswork to let sudden light into +the cavernous depths of the foulest pitfall that ever treachery +dug under the ignorant footsteps of its victim. Francis remembered +all the bitter ridicule, the sneering compassion, that Harcourt +Lowther had heaped upon the respectable world, from +which he held his dupe aloof, while he plunged him to the very +lips in the dissipations of Bohemia. By this means he had +effected as complete a separation between the husband and wife +as if the same roof had ceased to shelter them.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I have thought—when my tempter gave me time to think—that +it was Maude’s coldness alone which separated us; but +I know now that it was the schemer’s work from first to last. +She did not love me,—O Heaven, have pity upon my poor tortured +heart!—she loved him, perhaps: but I might have had +some little chance of winning her love if I had remained at her +feet—her slave, her worshipper; but he has held me away from +her, and now she abhors me. She has no feeling but disgust +and disdain for the wretch who has abandoned her to waste his +days on a racecourse, his nights in the drunken orgies of a +gaming-house.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Francis Tredethlyn sat with his face hidden in his hands, +thinking of his folly, and hating himself for it. Why had he +given himself up body and soul into the power of Harcourt +Lowther? why had he been so poor a dupe in the toils of this +man? It was not that he had entertained any special regard +for the gentleman who had pretended to be his friend. In Van +Diemen’s Land he had often had good reason to despise the +peevish grumbler, the selfish Sybarite; and yet for the last year +he had taken the man’s dictum upon every subject, even upon +that one vital question on which the happiness of his life depended. +Why had he trusted so blindly; why had he submitted +so slavishly to follow the guiding-strings that led him into +places where he found no pleasure, amongst people who inspired +him with disgust?</p> + +<p class='c008'>Little by little the answers to these questions shaped themselves +in Francis Tredethlyn’s mind; and he saw that his uncle +Oliver’s hoarded wealth had been at the root of all his misery. +The wealth which had lifted him suddenly into a world that +was strange to him; the wealth which had made him the mark +for every schemer; the wealth which had won him the hand of +the woman whose heart could never have been won by his true +and honest love. Adrift in that strange world, the man who +had kept his name unsullied, his soul untainted, his head erect +before the faces of his fellow-men, while his pockets were empty, +and his very existence dependent upon the day’s work that +earned him a day’s food, found himself all at once the most helpless +creature that had ever floated at the mercy of the winds +<span class='pageno' id='Page_277'>277</span>and waves upon a trackless ocean; and he had been very glad +to grasp the first rope that was thrown out to him in all friendly +seeming to guide him safely to the shore. His ignorance had +flung him, unarmed and powerless, into Harcourt Lowther’s +arms; and the man to whom he had felt himself superior while +blacking his boots and obeying his orders out in Van Diemen’s +Land became all at once, indeed, the master, free to work his +own will with that most helpless of all creatures, an uneducated +millionaire.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“If I had a son,” thought Francis Tredethlyn,—and a faint +thrill was stirred in his breast by the mere hypothesis,—“I +should send him to school before I turned him out into the +world. Yet I, who am as ignorant as a baby of the world in +which I live, have plunged recklessly into its vortex, expecting +to emerge unhurt. My own folly is the cause of my destruction. +And yet I might have met with an honest friend; I might have +had a loving wife.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“A loving wife!” Ah, how the poor faithful heart ached as +Francis thought this! A man’s fireside is the same peaceful +sanctuary, whether the hearth is gorgeous with encaustic tiles +and an Axminster rug, or poorly covered with a scrap of faded +Kidderminster, in some humble chamber where the firelight +glimmers on the delf platters that adorn a cottage-dresser.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“If Maude had loved me,” Francis argued, brooding moodily +upon his wrongs, “my money need have brought me no misery; +my ignorance would have beguiled me into no danger. Her +voice would have regulated my life; her counsel would have +prompted every action. Her smallest wish would have been my +law. And it would have been very hard if the companionship +of a lady had not in time transformed me into a gentleman. +But <em>what</em> are the people with whom I have herded since my +marriage—the acquaintances whom Harcourt Lowther has +chosen for me? What! pshaw! why do I stop to think of all +this? She never loved me. I should have tried to win her love +if <em>he</em> had left me to do so. I might have failed even then as +miserably as I have failed now.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>He groaned aloud as he thought this, and startled Miss +Grunderson, who was sitting at a respectful distance from him +folding and unfolding her parasol, and wondering why she had +got into this <span lang="fr"><i>galère</i></span>, and how she was to get out of it; and registering +a mental vow that she would never again be tempted by +her recollection of her duty to her neighbour to depart from the +manners and customs of polite society. But to her relief Francis +looked up presently, and addressed her.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I thank you heartily for having spoken so frankly to me,” +he said; “it is only right that I should be acquainted with the +common talk about the man whose hand I have clasped in friendship +<span class='pageno' id='Page_278'>278</span>almost every day for the last twelve months. But I hope +you will believe that, whatever Mr. Lowther may or may not be, +my wife is good and pure, and worthy of the warmest affection +you can feel for her. Your warmth of feeling has touched me +deeply, Miss Grunderson. I have been living in so false an +atmosphere lately, that I must be dull indeed if I were not +affected by your friendly candour. If—if anything should +happen to separate Maude and me, I should be very glad to +think she had such a friend as you. And—if ever you saw her +trusting, as I have trusted, in the truth and honour of Harcourt +Lowther, you would stand between her and that dangerous adviser, +that false friend—would you not, Miss Grunderson?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I would,” answered Rosa, valiantly; “I should speak my +mind to her and to Mr. Lowther into the bargain, as candidly +as I have spoken it to you to-night.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I believe you would,” said Francis. “And now, my dear, +God bless you, and good night!”</p> + +<p class='c008'>He held out both his hands and clasped Rosa’s pudgy little +paws in a brief grasp, and then strode past her on his way +towards the door.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“You’re not going out to-night, are you, Mr. Tredethlyn?” +she asked anxiously; “it is so <em>very</em> late.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Poor little Rosa was rather alarmed by that resolute stride +towards the door, which might only be the first step in some +ghastly vengeance to be taken upon Harcourt Lowther by the +stalwart Cornishman.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I shouldn’t like to have his blood upon my head, though I +<em>do</em> hate and detest him,” thought Miss Grunderson; “for in +these days of spirit-rapping there’s no knowing how he might +spite himself upon me. I might have him tilting and tip-toeing +every table I ever sat down to.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I’m only going to my room to write a letter,” answered Mr. +Tredethlyn; “shall I order my wife’s carriage for you?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“No, thank you; as our house is so near, I think I’ll ask one +of your servants to see me home,” replied Rosa, who had no idea +of leaving the ground just yet. “I’ll run up to Mrs. Tredethlyn’s +room and say good-bye. Shall I take her any message +from you?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“None, thank you; good night.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Good night.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Rosa left him still standing in the drawing-room. The +spacious and grandiose apartment, in all of whose costly adornment—from +the pictures on the walls to the Louis-Seize snuff-boxes +and lapis-lazuli <span lang="fr"><i>bonbonnières</i></span>, and all the expensive frivolities +so lavishly scattered on the tables—there was no single +object which had been chosen with any reference to his taste, +with any thought of his comfort or pleasure. No exquisite toys +<span class='pageno' id='Page_279'>279</span>of “picking-up;” no delicious bargaining with dirty brokers in +the purlieus of Holborn; no evening excursions, treasure-hunting, +among dingy by-ways, where remnants of choice old china +lurk sometimes, unrecognized and unvalued, amongst the rubbish +in a dimly-lighted shop-window; none of the pleasant +struggles, the proud triumphs, which attend the collection of +Poverty’s art and <span lang="fr"><i>virtu</i></span>, had attended the decoration of this +splendid chamber. The Cornishman had given <span lang="fr"><i>carte blanche</i></span> +to his friend, and had written cheques—whose figures he had +not remembered five minutes after writing them—in favour of a +celebrated dealer in Bond Street, and an upholsterer in Oxford +Street; and that was all. He smiled bitterly now as he paused +to look round the room before he left it—perhaps for ever.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“And this has been my home,” he thought. “Home! Better +to sit by my uncle Oliver’s miserly fire, in the dreary house on +the Cornish moors, than to loll in one of those yellow-satin +chairs, playing at ball with a gold snuff-box, and watching the +traitor whom I have trusted talking to my wife.”</p> + +</div> + +<div class='pbb'> + <hr class='pb c001'> +</div> +<div> + +<div> + <h2 class='c003'><a id='chapter-XXXIV'></a>CHAPTER XXXIV.<br> <br><span class='fss'>THE LADY AT PETERSHAM.</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>The letter which Francis Tredethlyn wrote in his study was a +long one; a very painful one to write, as it seemed, from the +face of the writer, and the weary sigh which every now and +then escaped from his lips, as his hurrying pen paused for a +moment. It was close upon ten o’clock when he began the +letter. The clock chimed the half-hour after eleven while he +was sealing it. He addressed the envelope, and then threw +himself back in his chair to think. He had so much to think +of. Maude’s extraordinary conduct, Rosa Grunderson’s revelation, +had overthrown the whole fabric of his life; and he found +himself surrounded by ruins whose utter chaos he could not +contemplate without bewilderment.</p> + +<p class='c008'>For the last few weeks his thoughts had been almost exclusively +devoted to his cousin Susan, and her wrongs. Found at +last, after so many failures and disappointments, so much delay, +the lonely girl had been welcomed as tenderly as any wanderer +who ever returned to the lost friends of his youth. But Susan +Lesley had a sad story to tell her cousin. The missing link in +the chain that Francis Tredethlyn had put together piece by +piece was the letter which had been written from St. Petersburg +by the man whom Susan had loved and trusted—the man +whose diary had revealed to Francis the utter worthlessness of +his character.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Robert Lesley’s letter was only a worthy companion to +<span class='pageno' id='Page_280'>280</span>Robert Lesley’s diary. In it he coldly and deliberately told the +girl who loved him, that she was not his wife; that the Marylebone +marriage was no marriage; the registrar no recognized +official, but a scoundrel hired for a twenty-pound note to play +the part of that functionary; that the registrar’s office had +been no office, but a lodging-house parlour hired for the occasion, +and half-a-dozen doors from the real office. This statement +was, of course, accompanied by the usual heartless sophistries +which run so glibly from the pen, or fall so smoothly from +the lips, of an utterly heartless man. The self-confessed +betrayer pleaded the madness of an all-absorbing love; the +stern necessities of well-bred poverty; the pressure of family +circumstances; the fear of a father’s rage; and then, in conclusion, +the writer stated the pitiful stipend which he was prepared +to offer to the woman he had abandoned, and the child he had +disowned.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Susan showed her cousin this letter, and told him how, after +receiving it, her mind had almost given way under the burden +of her great agony. Then it was that she had gone to Mrs. +Burfield, and had written to her father a long letter, telling him +something of her story, but not all; appealing piteously to the +only friend to whom she could appeal; for faithful Frank was +far away in some unknown country. She told her cousin how +she had waited, at first with a faint sickly hope, then with a +blank despair, for some answer from the father to whom she +had appealed. But none came; and when her little stock of +money had sunk to its lowest ebb, she left the dull quiet of +Coltonslough to begin a weary, lonely struggle for bread, which +had endured, without one ray of sunlight to illumine its blank +misery, until the summer Sunday afternoon on which Francis +Tredethlyn found her sitting in the nurse’s cottage with her +boy in her arms.</p> + +<p class='c008'>It was so sad a story, and so sadly common, that there is +little need to dwell upon the unvarnished record of a woman’s +battle with poverty in the heart of a great city.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Perhaps I ought to think myself very happy, Francis,” +Susan said when she had told her story; “for I was always +able to pay the nurse somehow for her care of my darling; and +the deadly fear of not being able to do <em>that</em> was the worst +trouble I knew in all that dreary time. <a id='tn-starvation'></a>I have been face to face +with starvation, Frank, very often within the last two years; +but it is not so terrible, when one is used to it. The help +always came at last, and some friendly hand, so unexpected +that it might have dropped down from heaven, has often come +between me and despair. I have sometimes thought that bitter +struggle for my daily bread was only a blessing in disguise, +for it kept me from brooding upon my great sorrow; it sometimes +<span class='pageno' id='Page_281'>281</span>shut from me the thought of Robert’s cruelty and my own +disgrace.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Disgrace!” cried the Cornishman; “no, Susan, there is no +shadow of disgrace upon you except the disgrace of being united +to a scoundrel and a liar. The marriage before the registrar +was a <span lang="la"><i>bonâ fide</i></span> marriage, as binding as if it had been performed +by the Archbishop of Canterbury.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>And then Francis told Susan of his visit to the registrar’s +office. This was the balm which he was able to pour into the +deepest wound that ever tortured a woman’s heart. But the +identity of the husband who had lied in denouncing himself a +liar was entirely unknown to Susan. In all the familiar intercourse +of the brief period in which the trusting girl had been +a petted and happy wife, Robert Lesley had not let fall one +careless word relating in the remotest way to his position in life, +his family, or his prospects. When first consulted by Francis +upon the contents of the diary, Messrs. Kursdale and Scardon +had instituted an inquiry as to whether a Mr. Robert Lesley +had been inscribed on the books of St. Boniface any time +between 1845 and 1852; and the answer had been in the negative. +No person of the name had been a member of that college +within the last ten years. Francis could only conclude, therefore, +that Mrs. Burfield had been right in her supposition that +the man calling himself Robert Lesley had shielded his identity +under a false name.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“But your husband was visited by his brother, was he not, +Susan?” said Mr. Tredethlyn, when this subject was discussed +between the cousins.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Yes; but I knew no more of Robert’s brother than of +Robert himself. He did not come to us often. I heard that he +was a lawyer,—a barrister, I think,—and that he lived in the +Temple. I heard even that by accident, and Robert seemed +almost vexed that I should know so much.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>All these trifling circumstances seemed to point inevitably to +one conclusion; Robert Lesley had intended from the first to +abandon his wife, whenever his own interests rendered it advisable +that he should throw off the tie that bound him to her. +Love and selfishness go very badly hand-in-hand together; and +love had soon left selfishness sole master of the field.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“But this man shall be made to acknowledge his wife,—to +give a name to his child,” cried Francis, “if he can be +found.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>If he could be found: that was the grand question. But Mr. +Tredethlyn was quite at a loss with regard to the means by +which his cousin’s husband was to be found. In this case even +the grand medium by which the lost are restored to the arms of +their friends—the second column of the “Times”—could be of +<span class='pageno' id='Page_282'>282</span>no avail; for what is the use of advertising for a man who does +not want to reveal himself?</p> + +<p class='c008'>“If my husband is alive, Providence may throw him across +my path some day,” Susan said, resignedly. “He could not be +more dead to me than he is now if he were buried in the deepest +grave that ever held the ashes of the lost; but if he gave +my boy the name that is his right, I think I could forgive him +all the wrong he has done me.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>It was quite in vain that Francis Tredethlyn sought to carry +his cousin and her son home to his own house. The sorrowful +young mother shrank with absolute terror from the idea of +encountering strangers, of finding herself in a splendid house +amongst happy people.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I am used to my poverty, Francis,” she said;—“let me be +poor still. Nobody is inquisitive about me, because I am beneath +people’s curiosity. No one questions me about the husband +who has deserted me, or extorts my story from me only to +doubt it when it is told. My father would not believe me; can +I expect strangers to be more trusting than he was? No, +Francis; leave me alone in my obscurity. I have a lodging +near here, and I can see my darling every day. I will freely +accept from you a little income which will enable me to live as +I have lived, without working as hard as I have worked; but I +will accept no more. I am delighted to think that my father +left his fortune to you, Frank; and I thank and bless you for +having taken so much trouble to find me out.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Francis Tredethlyn found it hard work to win Susan away +from this determination, so quietly expressed. But he did at +last persuade her to agree to his own plans for her life, on condition +that he should tell Maude nothing, nor ask Susan to +meet her until the missing husband was found, and compelled +to acknowledge his wife and son. Francis consented to promise +this; but he cherished a hope that Susan would relent by-and-by, +when she heard more of Maude’s tender and amiable nature, +and that he would be able to win his wife’s friendship for the +simple country girl who had played with him amongst the +daisies in Landresdale churchyard.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“You must accept the home I shall prepare for you, Susy,” +said Francis, “or I will have a deed of gift drawn up to-morrow, +transferring half my fortune to you. I am ready to divide your +father’s wealth with you as soon as ever I understand your legal +position. In the meantime let me have the sweetest pleasure +my money has ever given me yet—the pleasure of making a +happy home for you and my little kinsman. If you knew how +I have wasted that hoarded money, Susy, on racecourses, and +all kinds of worthless places,” added Mr. Tredethlyn, with a +remorseful recollection of one particular brand of Moselle, for +<span class='pageno' id='Page_283'>283</span>which he had been wont to pay fourteen shillings a bottle in +the purlieus of the Haymarket.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Susan consented to let her cousin do what he liked with +regard to the place in which she was to live henceforward. +What mother could refuse a bright home for the child she +loves? A few words from Francis conjured up the vision of +a garden, where the boy could play under the shadow of lilacs +and laburnums; where the summer breeze would waft the +petals of overblown roses around that golden head. From the +happy moment in which he urged the child’s welfare as an +argument against the mother, Francis Tredethlyn’s triumph +was secured. Susan pondered. She thought of the sweet +country air, the bright rooms, with the fresh breath of morning +blowing in at the open windows, the garden, the cow, the +chickens, and all the joys of that sweet rustic paradise which +town-bred children hear of from their mother’s lips, and see +only in their dreams. Susan hesitated. Francis had made +friends with the boy by this time, and had enlisted the child +on his side of the argument. When the woman’s sorrowful +pride began to hold out weakly, when the mother’s heart +showed symptoms of relenting, the child’s little chubby arms +crept round her neck, and the child’s tiny voice pleaded in her +ear:</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Peese, mammy, do live in the pooty house, and let Wobert +have pooty flowers.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>It was the triumph of infantine oratory. Susan turned +to her kinsman, half laughing, half crying, and gave him her +hand.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“You must do as you like, cousin Frank,” she said. “Whatever +is best for Robert must be best for me.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Thus it was that Francis Tredethlyn had withdrawn himself +in a great measure from the society of Mr. Lowther, while he +scoured the prettiest suburbs in search of a home for his cousin, +and superintended the necessary improvements and decoration, +the selection of the simple furniture, the arrangement of a +garden, in which Robert Lesley’s son might play happily, his +life undarkened by the baseness of an unknown father. There +had been unspeakable pleasure for the Cornishman in the doing +of this work. It was so long since he had been of use to any +one; it was so long since his supremest benevolence to his +fellow-men had taken any higher form than the payment of a +dinner-bill, and a handsome bonus to the waiter. He seemed +to breathe a new atmosphere, a fresher, purer air, when he +shook himself clear of Harcourt Lowther’s society, and spent a +summer’s day pottering amongst carpenters and house-painters +in the Petersham cottage. The odour of turpentine and lead +did not give him a headache; it was almost invigorating after +<span class='pageno' id='Page_284'>284</span>the stifling fumes of musk and mock-turtle, patchouli, and +devilled whitebait that had pervaded the hotel dining-rooms in +which he had so often acted as host. Energetic though Mr. +Tredethlyn was in the carrying out of his arrangements, Susan +had been established little more than a week at the cottage, and +the paint on the Venetian shutters was still rather sticky, when +Harcourt Lowther found the upholsterer’s bill, which gave him +the clue to his pupil’s mysterious conduct. To hasten down to +Petersham, find the cottage, refresh himself with dry sherry and +soda-water at the nearest tavern, and to make himself agreeably +familiar with the landlord of the tavern, was all incomparably +easy to Mr. Lowther. From the landlord he heard all about +Brook Cottage. How it had been to let for nearly a twelvemonth; +how it had been taken all in a hurry at the end of May +by a dashing-looking gentleman from town, who had been reported +scouring the neighbourhood in hansom cabs, inquiring +for houses to let, for three days at a stretch; how painters +and glaziers, carpenters and gardeners, had set to work in hot +haste to renew and revivify everything in-doors and out; how +waggon-loads of the finest gravel from Wimbledon, and cartloads +of the softest turf from Ham, had been laid down in the +garden; how furniture, that was every bit of it new, had been +brought down from London; how the tall, dashing, energetic +gentleman in the hansom cab had been perpetually on the +ground with his officious finger for ever in the pie; and how +larger cans of half-and-half had been consumed by the workmen +at the cost of the dashing gentleman than the landlord of the +Prince’s Feathers remembers to have chalked up against any one +customer since he had traded as a licensed victualler.</p> + +<p class='c008'>All this Mr. Lowther was told; and beyond this, he heard +how a lady, very pretty and quite young, but a little pale and +worn-looking, had arrived at last to take possession of “the +prettiest little box that was ever put together, without regard to +expense;” how she was attended by an elderly female in black, +who had evidently seen better days, and who acted as nurse to +a little boy; how two respectable young women had been hired +in the neighbourhood, to act as cook and housemaid; and how, +coming regularly to the Feathers in quest of the kitchen-beer, +they had already reported their mistress as the sweetest and +pleasantest of ladies, and first-cousin to the dashing gentleman +in the hansom cab. The landlord tried to look as if he had no +uncharitable thoughts about this cousinship; but Harcourt +Lowther saw that Francis Tredethlyn and the lady had been +subjects of grave scandal in that quiet country place. He heard +that the dashing gentleman had been at Petersham almost every +day for the last week; and that he and the lady passed the +greater part of their time in the garden, where they might be +<span class='pageno' id='Page_285'>285</span>seen at any time from the high-road,—the gentleman smoking +and playing with a little boy, and the lady working, at a rustic +table, under a mulberry-tree. A pot-boy, coming in from his +rounds, as Harcourt lounged at the bar, confirmed the landlord’s +statement when appealed to. He had passed Brook Cottage not +five minutes before, and had seen the lady and gentleman talking +to a gardener, who was doing something to a rose-tree.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“She’s a rare one for flowers, the lady is,” the potman said, +in conclusion.</p> + +<p class='c008'>A rare one for flowers: Harcourt Lowther mused gravely +upon this remark.</p> + +<p class='c008'>The fair denizens of Bohemia, to whom he had introduced +Francis, were not generally devoted to floriculture in cottage-gardens, +though they were greedy of gigantic bouquets, to rest +on the velvet cushions of their opera-boxes, or the front seats +of their carriages, when they drove to race meetings. Who was +this pale, worn-looking young woman, who called Francis +cousin? Was she really his cousin, that Cornish girl of whom +the soldier had told his master in Van Diemen’s Land, and +whose miserably-executed likeness had reminded Harcourt of +another face, whose owner had played some part in the experience +of his life? Was this inhabitant of the newly-furnished +cottage really the Cornish cousin? Mr. Lowther could scarcely +imagine that it was so; for, in that case, why should Francis +have kept her existence a secret from his <span lang="la"><i>fidus Achates</i></span> in the +person of Harcourt himself?</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Secrecy is only another name for guilt,” thought Mr. Lowther. +“Our friend has gone to the bad in real earnest this +time, and I can make a <span lang="fr"><i>coup</i></span>. I was getting very tired of the +slow game.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Armed with this information, the schemer went back to town, +to take his place in Maude’s opera-box, and to lead up to that +idea of a morning at the Cedars, which seemed to originate in +Mrs. Tredethlyn’s own brain. Chance, which had been against +him so long, had gone with him unfailingly in this business. +The lucky moment had come; he had got his lead at last, and +had only to play his winning cards. Chance had been constant +to the schemer even in that interview between Francis and +Rosa; for it had happened that, in all Miss Grunderson’s candid +outpourings, she had not dropped a word about Mrs. Tredethlyn’s +stroll in the Petersham meadows; though, even if she +had done so, the Cornishman might have been very slow to perceive +that an accidental glimpse of himself and gentle Susy, in +friendly companionship, could have been the primary cause of +that stormy greeting which he had received at the hands of his +wife. Francis accepted his wife’s passionate outburst as only +<span class='pageno' id='Page_286'>286</span>the climax of the disgust and weariness with which he had +inspired her.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“She reproaches me for the life I have been leading lately,” +he said bitterly; “but she does not understand her own feelings. +It is not my life, but me she hates. It is myself that +inspires the loathing and contempt which she talked of, and not +my late hours or my gambling and horse-racing.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>After sitting for some time plunged in a gloomy reverie, in +the dreary library, where the backs of the books he never opened +seemed to frown upon him in their sombre Russia leather +brownness, Francis stirred as the little black marble clock on +the mantel-piece chimed the quarter after twelve, and felt in his +waistcoat-pocket for a note which he had found waiting for him +on his table the previous night. It was a tiny twisted <span lang="fr"><i>poulet</i></span> +from Harcourt Lowther:—</p> + +<p class='c015'>“<span class='sc'>Dear Frank</span>,—A line to remind you of to-morrow night. +You will be expected any time after nine.—Yours always,</p> + +<div class='c011'>“H. L.”</div> + +<p class='c007'>This reminder referred to a bachelor’s supper which Mr. +Lowther had arranged at his lodgings; a party at which there +was to be what the host called a quiet rubber. A rubber +played with that deadly quiet which attends the science of +whist when heavy amounts tremble in the balance, and a +sum that a poor man would call a fortune may depend on the +player’s judicious choice between a five and a seven. Such a +rubber as that which the well-known Sir Robert was once concluding, +when, just as he pondered over his two last cards, a +thoughtless looker-on happened to break the solemn silence by +one luckless word, and lo, the chain of scientific reasoning +dropped to pieces,—the popular statesman played the wrong +card, and lost a thousand pounds. It was not often that +Harcourt Lowther entertained his friends; but when Francis +lapsed into a temporary stagnation, the master was apt to +keep his pupil going on the road to ruin by such an entertainment +as this. <a id='tn-quietrubber'></a>The quiet rubber at Mr. Lowther’s lodgings +generally led to other rubbers elsewhere, or cursory appointments +for Liverpool or Newmarket, or Chester or Northampton, or a +dinner at Richmond, gaily cut for at blind hookey while the +men were rising from the whist-table. It was a quarter-past +twelve now. It would be nearly one o’clock before the fastest +hansom could carry Mr. Tredethlyn to the Strand. Francis +looked from the clock on the chimney-piece to the scrap of +paper in his hand; hesitated for a few moments, with a black +<span class='pageno' id='Page_287'>287</span>frown upon his face, and then started hastily from his lounging +attitude, and looked about him for his hat.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“There couldn’t be a better opportunity,” he muttered, “for +saying what I want to say to him.”</p> + +</div> + +<div class='pbb'> + <hr class='pb c001'> +</div> +<div> + +<div> + <h2 class='c003'><a id='chapter-XXXV'></a>CHAPTER XXXV.<br> <br><span class='fss'>A HASTY RECKONING.</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>Harcourt Lowther had never played so bad a rubber as that +with which he beguiled the evening while waiting Francis +Tredethlyn’s appearance at the little bachelor-party assembled +in his rooms. There was the usual blending of the hawk and +pigeon tribe at Mr. Lowther’s reunion: the birds of prey distinguishable +by the purple blackness of their dyed moustaches +and the crow’s-feet round their faded eyes; the innocent fledglings +fresh-coloured and tawny, with a profound belief in their +own wisdom and a supreme contempt for everything outside +the narrow circle in which they condescended to exist.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Mr. Lowther suffered his partner to knock under ignominiously +to antagonistic sevens and nines, while the big cards +lurked idle in his own hand, to fall at the close into the ravenous +jaws of the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth trumps; nor +was he to be roused into decent play by the unqualified remonstrances +of his victim. He was thinking of Maude. It +was not the face of the queen of spades which he saw as he +sat hopelessly staring at the card in a vain endeavour to concentrate +his attention; it was Maude’s speaking, passionate +countenance which looked at him, all aglow with angry feeling. +He saw her in all her beauty as he had seen her that afternoon,—the +tremulous lips, the flashing blue eyes,—for there are +blue eyes which in anger have more fire than the starriest orbs +that ever veiled their lightnings under the cloudy lace of an +Andalusian marchesa. His love for her—which was one of +the most selfish passions of a selfish nature—had grown and +strengthened day by day since the hour of his return, and had +kindled into an all-absorbing flame now that he seemed so +near his triumph.</p> + +<p class='c008'><em>Was</em> he near his triumph? That question occurred to him +several times as he sat opposite his friend Captain Harrison of +the Spanish Legion, playing the unluckiest rubber that the +Captain had been engaged in for weeks,—“And the beggar had +such first-rate cards too,” as the Captain said afterwards, politely +criticising his friend’s play; “if he hadn’t kep’ his trumps +so jolly dark we could have carried everything before us.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Was he near his triumph? He had been playing for two +stakes—the woman he loved and the fortune he envied. He +<span class='pageno' id='Page_288'>288</span>knew Maude Tredethlyn well enough to know that so long as +her husband lived, she was as far beyond his reach as the stars +which shone down upon him as he walked home from Stuccoville, +and of whose light he thought so little. Maude, as the +daughter of an insolvent trader, was a lovely being whom he +had felt no reluctance to resign; for he had looked forward with +a horrible foresight to the day when the girl he loved should be +again within his reach; no longer as a penniless spinster, but a +wealthy widow. <em>This</em> had been the goal which Harcourt had +seen at the end of that weary road along which he conducted +the young man who trusted him. No physician ever watched +a patient more intently than Mr. Lowther watched the slow +undermining of the Cornishman’s glorious constitution under +the influence of late hours and hard drinking. The bloodshot +eyes, the unsteady hand, the failing appetite, the uncertain +spirits, the feverish unrest, were all diagnostics that marked the +progress of the schemer’s work. Mr. Lowther had seen so many +young men drop down in the poisoned atmosphere to which he +introduced Maude’s husband. He hoped that the end which +had come to so many would come to this ignorant, blundering +rustic, into whose lap blind Plutus had cast the wealth that +should have fallen to better men. The end must come; for the +stupid Crœsus tumbled so helplessly into the snare, and abandoned +himself so completely to his captor’s mercy. It was only +a question of patience. The end would come in due time: and +then there was the woman he loved, and the richest widow in +London, to reward the plotter’s patience, to crown his efforts +with happiness and success. To-day’s business, Harcourt +Lowther argued, as he played that unfortunate rubber, could +not be otherwise than a lucky stroke, likely to hurry matters to +a crisis. Francis had slipped out of his hands so often of late, +had kept better hours and drunk less. But a serious quarrel +with Maude would inevitably fling Mr. Tredethlyn back upon +the spurious Lethe of the brandy-bottle, and would hasten the +schemer’s work to its fatal close. “I think I have shut the door +of his home upon him,” thought Harcourt; “it will be strange +if he is not glad to drop completely into the groove in which I +want to see him.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>This, in plain English, is the plan which Harcourt Lowther +had made for himself; though he would scarcely have put his +scheme into such very plain words, even in his own thoughts. +Iago, in a play or a novel, is obliged to give utterance to his +schemes with tolerable clearness; but the real Iago is reticent, +even in commune with himself, and huddles his blackest thoughts +into some dark corner of his mind, where they lie conveniently +hidden from the eye of conscience.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Before twelve o’clock Mr. Lowther had abandoned his place +<span class='pageno' id='Page_289'>289</span>at the whist-table to his brother; and after lounging behind the +chair of a young man who was playing <span lang="fr"><i>écarté</i></span>, and making a +random bet now and then, the host proposed supper,—a proposition +which was received very warmly by the men who were +losing money, and very coolly by the winners. Harcourt +Lowther’s supper was almost as unceremonious an affair as +that memorable entertainment in Lant Street, Borough, at +which Mr. Robert Sawyer played the part of host. A young +man, hired for the occasion from a neighbouring tavern, laid the +cloth very rapidly, while the guests lounged against the corners +of the mantel-pieces, and grouped themselves in little knots, to +discuss coming events in the racing world, or to criticise current +pictures and current theatricals, with an occasional spice of +current scandal.</p> + +<p class='c008'>The supper was very simple. There were unlimited supplies +of those delicate little oysters which seem created with a special +view to bachelors’ supper-parties, and the refreshment of exhausted +playgoers; and whose native beds the ignorant foreigner +might not unnaturally imagine to lie somewhere at the back of +the Strand. And to wash these down, Mr. Lowther had provided +Chablis, white Hermitage, and Rüdesheimer. There were +spatch-cocks and devilled kidneys, fried potatoes, monster +lobsters, marvellous cheeses from the remotest cantons of Switzerland, +and the most delicate varieties of green-stuff from a +French fruiterer’s in the purlieus of Leicester Square. There +was no pretence of an elaborate entertainment; but there was +an open case of sparkling Moselle by the side of Mr. Lowther’s +chair, into which he dipped about once in five minutes; and the +young man from the tavern had been initiated into the mysteries +of a claret-cup, which he compounded at a rickety little sideboard +in the inner room.</p> + +<p class='c008'>So far as the guests went, the supper was a success. There +was just the amount of confusion which gives a picnic flavour +to a meal, and which seems an infallible stimulant of animal +spirits. Mr. Lowther’s visitors enjoyed themselves immensely, +and the party was becoming boisterous in its gaiety, when the +door was opened, and Francis Tredethlyn walked in.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Harcourt Lowther pushed away the Moselle case, which was +now only filled with tumbled straw and empty bottles, and +called for a chair, which was edged into the corner at the host’s +right hand.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“You’ll have some supper, Tredethlyn?” he said, <a id='tn-shakinghands'></a>while +Francis was shaking hands with some of the men. They were +all known to him, and all knew his story, and had a pretty clear +idea that Harcourt was what they called “cleaning him out,” +in the most approved style by which the process can be performed. +“These things are all cold, I’m afraid. Jones, run across +<span class='pageno' id='Page_290'>290</span>and get some fresh oysters, and you can order another spatch-cock—to +be ready in a quarter of an hour at the latest. Sit +down, dear boy. What the deuce have you been doing with +yourself all night? Give him elbow-room, Harding, that’s a +good fellow, and don’t knock your ashes on to this corner of the +table-cloth just yet. Now, then, Philcote, the ‘Last Rose of +Summer’ as soon as you like; but you may as well make up +your mind what key you’ll sing it in <em>before</em> you begin.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Francis called back the man as he was hurrying from the +room.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Stop!” he cried; “you needn’t order anything more—for +me. I shan’t eat supper to-night.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Something in his tone arrested every other voice; and there +was a silence as sudden and as complete as if some magician +had waved his wand and changed Harcourt Lowther’s guests +into stone. Something in his look attracted every eye, and held +it fixed in a wondering stare upon his face. Mr. Philcote, who +fancied himself an amateur Sims Reeves, was disturbed in his +calculation of that vocal bullfinch to be cleared between the +third and fourth notes of the “Last Rose of Summer,” and +abandoned all thoughts of singing his favourite ballad.</p> + +<p class='c008'>The Cornishman’s colourless face and disordered hair and +dress might have suggested the idea that he had been drinking; +but there was an inscrutable something in that white face +which was not compatible with drunkenness. Harcourt Lowther +looked at him nervously. The marital quarrel had come +off, evidently, and Francis took matters very seriously.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Come, Mr. Troublefeast,” cried the host, “we’re not going +to stand this sort of thing, you know. We’ll have no statue of +the Commander stalking in upon us in the midst of our fun—without +Mozart. What the deuce is the matter with you, dear +boy? Roderick, pass that tankard this way, will you? You +fellows down there contrive to keep everything to yourself. Let +the rosy vintage circulate. There’s another half-dozen of the +claret in the next room, and no end of lemons. So the moment +for the selfishness of the savage to overpower the civilization of +the gentleman has not arrived. Come, Frank, take down the +shutters, and light up; you’ve made us all as quiet as the +frozen crew described by that pertinacious old bore, the Ancient +Mariner. Take a long dip into that tankard, old fellow, and +come up bright again.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Mr. Lowther struck his small white hand lightly upon his +friend’s shoulder as he concluded. Francis had dropped into +the place offered to him, and sat there, looking like nothing <em>but</em> +the Commander, in his stony rigidity of face and figure. As +Harcourt Lowther’s hand alighted on his shoulder, he startled +every one by throwing it deliberately away from him.</p> + +<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_291'>291</span>“I have had enough of your friendship, thank you,” he said; +“henceforward, if we are to be anything at all to each other, I +had rather we should be foes—I may have better luck perhaps +that way.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Tredethlyn! are you drunk? or mad?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Neither, but I <em>have</em> been both; for I have trusted you. +You needn’t ask me what I mean,” said Francis, interrupting +Harcourt Lowther’s exclamation by a rapid gesture of his uplifted +hand; “I am going to tell you, and very plainly. Gentlemen, +you were going to listen to a song just now; have you +any objection to hearing a story instead? There will be time +for your ballad afterwards, you know, Philcote. My story is +not a long one.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Harcourt Lowther had turned very pale. His light blue eyes +glittered, and the slim white fingers of his right hand closed +involuntarily on the knife that had been lying near them. He +looked as a man might look, who marching proudly upon the +road to victory, saw the earth yawn asunder beneath his feet, and +knew all at once that his next step must hurl him to a dreadful +death. He was very quiet; but the quivering of his thin +nostrils, the quickening of his breath, and his faded colour, +betrayed a degree of hesitation which set his guests wondering, +and infused a dash of excitement into the wind-up of the little +banquet. The highest development of Christianity cannot quite +extinguish the natural savage. Cromwell’s Ironsides did murderous +work with the gospel in their wallets and pious exclamations +upon their lips; and it seems the attribute of human +nature to delight in a row. The guests at Harcourt Lowther’s +supper-table pricked up their ears with one accord, and it was +with considerable difficulty that they managed to keep up a +faint attempt at that kind of conversation which had engaged +them, in twos and threes, before Francis Tredethlyn’s entrance. +When they spoke to one another now, it was only in undertones, +and their disjointed sentences revealed the fact that they +were listening to the speaker at the end of the table. But when +Francis spoke of telling a story, the company dropped all pretence +of indifference to him; and listened with a polite appearance +of perfect unconsciousness as to any unfriendly intention +on the part of the late visitor.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Sing your song, Philcote,” said Harcourt Lowther, resolutely; +“we want no stories—we’ve no time for twaddle of that +sort. Let’s have a good song or two, and then we’ll go into the +next room for a rubber.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Mr. Philcote, whose nerves were fluttered by the ominous +gloom that had so suddenly fallen upon the assembly, gave a despairing +cough, and made a husky plunge at the A flat on which +he should have begun the sweetest song-writer’s sweetest song; +<span class='pageno' id='Page_292'>292</span>but before he had articulated his initiatory “’Tis,” <a id='tn-manmoustache'></a>a big man +with a black moustache, who owed Harcourt Lowther a grudge, +and had been consuming the best bits of the lobsters, and the +lion’s share of the Moselle, under a mental protest, interrupted +the timid singer:</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Let’s have the story first, and the ‘Last Rose’ afterwards,” +he said. “Fire away, Tredethlyn; your audience have supped +luxuriously, and are in good humour.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I dare say it’s a common story enough in your set, Boystock,” +answered Francis; “but it isn’t a long one. It is the +story of a man who was lifted one day from poverty to wealth, +and found himself all at once alone in a world as strange to +him as if he had been transported out of this planet into +another inhabited by a different species.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Egad,” muttered Mr. Boystock, “I wish somebody would +transport me!”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Ah, it isn’t likely, old fellow, in <em>that</em> way,” murmured his +neighbour.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“For some time the country-bred cub—he was country-bred, +and what you would call a cub—got on well enough. He +floundered into a few mistakes, and he floundered out of them, +after his own ignorant fashion. I think there is a providence +for such men, as there is for drunkards, and so long as they +stagger along <em>alone</em>, they come to very little grief. He did a +great many silly things with his money, I dare say; but I think +he <em>once</em> did a generous thing—though, God knows, in doing it, +he only followed the blind impulse of his undisciplined heart as +ignorantly as if he had been some blundering Newfoundland +dog that pulls the mistress he loves out of the water where he +sees her drowning. His wealth prospered with him, though he +had cared little enough for it when it fell into his hands. By +means of it he was able to save the woman he loved from a +great trouble; and in her boundless gratitude for the service +which he valued so lightly, she abandoned herself to the purest +impulse that ever stirred a noble breast, and offered him her +hand. If he had been generous or wise, he would have refused +the hand which could not give him a heart. He was only—in +love. Selfishly, stupidly, he seized the proffered sacrifice; +too besotted in his blind passion to perceive that it was a +sacrifice.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Mr. Lowther’s guests stared blankly at one another. They +had not dropped their own talk to hear such stuff as this. +Harcourt sat very still, with his hand always upon the knife. +At the other end of the table lounged Roderick, the very +picture of well-bred indifference. He felt that his brother had +dropped in for it; but he had no idea of interrupting the action +of the little drama by any fraternal championship.</p> + +<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_293'>293</span>“Let them fight it out their own way,” he thought; “I like +to see the white man suffer.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“The country-bred cub was still fresh to the intoxication of +his fancied happiness, when a man who had been familiar with +him in his poverty came from the distant part of the world +where they had met and known each other, and offered to be +his friend. The cub’s ignorance of life was so complete, that he +did not know it was possible for a man who bore her Majesty’s +commission, and called himself a gentleman, to be a liar and a +villain. He trusted his old acquaintance implicitly, and accepted +him as a friend—believing, still in his boorish ignorance, that +there was such a thing as friendship, or, at the worst, an honourable +good fellowship between honest men. His friend did not +tell him that he had been the engaged lover of the woman the +boor was going to marry; and when the young couple began +their new life, he planted himself in their house; and his first +act was to shut the husband from the home whose dingiest room +was a paradise, so long as it was sanctified by the presence +of an idolized wife. Will any one at this table guess the plot +which the boor’s friend hatched against him in the hour when +their hands first met in friendship? I think not. The gentleman—polished, +well-born, highly educated—allowed the country +cub to marry the woman he loved; reserving to himself the +hope of marrying her, enriched by the cub’s money, when the +cub was dead. This once arranged, there was only one thing +more to be settled; and that was the cub’s life. Unluckily he +was a brawny six-foot fellow, with the constitution of a prize-fighter. +But then prize-fighters are not always long-lived; their +habits are so apt to be against them. Well, gentlemen, there +have been men who have undermined a victim’s strength with +small doses of antimony, while they smiled in his face, and +called him brother. We manage these things better nowadays. +The gentleman resolved that the boor should drink himself to +death.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Is this the plot of a French novel?” asked Roderick, superciliously, +after a brief silence, in which Francis Tredethlyn had +paused to take breath; “if it is, you had better tell us the title +of the book, and let us read it in the original. There may be +some chance of our thinking it interesting <em>then</em>.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“There are shameful things done out of novels as well as in +them, Mr. Lowther,” answered Francis. “What I am telling +you is the truth. The gentleman took the wealthy boor under +his protection, and from that hour the cub’s mind and the cub’s +body began to wither under the influence of a vice which of +himself he held in abhorrence, but which in the dull indifference +of a man who has no hope to elevate him, no aim to strive for, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_294'>294</span>he was weak enough to accept as the cure for all his troubles. +What did it matter how many glasses of brandy he drank, +or how often he staggered across his dreary threshold in the +early morning, stupefied by foul gaslit atmospheres and bad +wines? His friend took care to remind him that there was no +one to be sorry for his misdeeds, or to rejoice in his repentance +if he repented. He could not sink so low that his wife would be +affected by his degradation; he could not rise so high that she +would be proud of his elevation. His friend dinned the bitter +truth into the wretch’s ear. The beautiful young wife despised +him; the wealth that other men envied was useless to him, +except in its power to buy the oblivion of the brandy-bottle. +From the hour in which his well-born friend took him under his +protection, the boor never did a generous action, or heard a +noble sentiment; and he very rarely went home sober. He was +drinking himself to death as fast as a strong man can, when +Providence took compassion on him, and gave him a duty to +fulfil. A helpless girl, his kinswoman, was thrown across his +path, and all at once he found himself of use in the world. +From that moment his friend’s scheme was overthrown. Good-bye +to the brandy-bottle and the bad wines! The boor had a +friendless woman dependent on his protection, and he had something +to live for. He determined to sink the past; bid farewell +to the wife whose affection he was unable to win; turn his back +upon the circle he had lived in and the people who had known +him; and finish his days honestly among honest men.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“‘So he died, and she very imprudently married the barber,’” +exclaimed Mr. Boystock. “It’s a very good story, I dare say; +but apropos to what?” demanded the gentleman, looking at +Harcourt Lowther with a malicious twinkle in his little black +eyes. “I don’t see the connection with the proverbial <span lang="fr"><i>bottes</i></span>. +What does it all mean?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“It means, gentlemen, that I am the boor who has been the +dupe of a villain, and will be so no longer; and the name of the +villain is Harcourt Lowther.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>There was a moment’s silence, followed by a sudden smashing +of glass. A pair of small sinewy white hands fastened +cat-like upon Francis Tredethlyn’s throat, and he and Harcourt +Lowther were grappling each other in a fierce struggle. It was +very long since the gentleman had been weak enough to get in +a passion. He had sat as still as a statue while the Cornishman +set forth his indictment, waiting to see how completely he +had failed; and now that he knew that his plot, so deliberately +laid, so patiently carried out, was only a bungling business after +all—for the man <em>must</em> have bungled who fails so utterly—Mr. +Lowther lost his head all in a moment, and abandoned himself +<span class='pageno' id='Page_295'>295</span>to a sudden access of rage, that reduced him to the level of a +wounded tiger.</p> + +<p class='c008'>It was scarcely with Francis that he was angry. What did +it matter how this man spoke of him or thought of him? +What did it matter that these other men should hear him +accused of a baseness, which was only an intellectual improvement +upon the vulgar process by which the gentlemanly birds +of prey plucked the tender plumage of their victims? All this +was nothing. It was against himself—against his own failure—that +Harcourt Lowther’s fury was raging; only like all fury +of that kind, it was ravenous for vengeance of some sort. It +was only for about twenty seconds that his claws were fastened +on Francis Tredethlyn’s throat. A Cornish heavy-weight is +not exactly the kind of person for a delicately-built Sybarite +to wrestle with very successfully.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“We are rather celebrated for this sort of thing in my county,” +Mr. Tredethlyn muttered between his set teeth, as he loosened +Harcourt Lowther’s grasp from his throat, and hurled him in a +kind of bundle to a corner of the room, where he fell crashing +down amongst the ruins of a dumb-waiter, half buried under a +chaos of broken bottles and lobster-shells.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Roderick Lowther would have sprung upon his brother’s foe +in the next minute, but the other men hustled round him and +hemmed him in.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Don’t you see the fellow’s a Hercules?” cried one of them; +“let him alone, Lowther.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Let me go!” roared the diplomatist; “I know my brother’s +a false-hearted rascal, but I won’t stand by and see a Lowther +played at ball with by any boor in Christendom. Let me get at +him, Boystock, or I shall hurt you.” But Francis had walked +quietly to the door, and turning with his hand upon the lock, +waited for a moment’s pause in the confusion before he spoke.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Gentlemen,” he said, “you are witnesses that your friend +attacked me. I have no quarrel with Mr. Roderick Lowther; +and as I am the bigger man of the two, there would be no +credit for either him or me in a scuffle between us. If Harcourt +Lowther wants to see me, he will be able to find me any time +this week at the Grand Hotel, Covent Garden; after this week +I shall sail for South America by the first packet that leaves +Liverpool.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>He paused a second time. There was no answer. The +diplomatist had thought better of his thirst for fraternal retribution.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Why should I get myself into a mess about the beggar?” +he thought; “he wouldn’t see <em>me</em> out of a scrape, I dare say.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>So Francis departed unquestioned: not to return to the +<span class='pageno' id='Page_296'>296</span>Stuccoville mansion, but to walk up Southampton Street, and +across Covent Garden, to seek a shelter in the old lodgings +where he had lived so pleasantly in his bachelor days.</p> + +</div> + +<div class='pbb'> + <hr class='pb c001'> +</div> +<div> + +<div> + <h2 class='c003'><a id='chapter-XXXVI'></a>CHAPTER XXXVI.<br> <br><span class='fss'>POOR FRANK’S LETTER.</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>Maude shut herself in her own rooms after her interview with +Francis, and refused to see any one except Julia. She wanted +some one to cling to in her sudden distress, and was fain to +throw herself upon the Irish girl’s bosom for consolation.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Then Julia Desmond had her revenge. It was very sweet to +see the woman who had usurped the cup of prosperity once held +to her own lips brought down so low; more wretched in the +midst of her wealth and grandeur than Julia had been in her +lonely attic at Bayswater, with a July sun glaring in upon her +through a curtainless window, and the drowsy voices of her +pupils droning in her ears. The pleasure that thrilled through +her breast as she held Maude Tredethlyn in her arms, and heard +her declare, amidst passionate sobs, that Francis had been false +and base and wicked, and that she was the most miserable +woman in the world, was a sensation more exquisite than Miss +Desmond had ever known before. For the honour of humanity, +that wicked pleasure did not last very long. The daughter of +Patrick Macnamara Ryan O’Brien Desmond was not altogether +base. Maude was at her feet, and she was avenged. It was +her rival’s insolent happiness—happiness always <em>does</em> seem insolent +to the unhappy—that had galled her to the quick. The +two women were on a level now, and Julia forgave her old companion.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I told you he was a villain,” she said; and that was the +only unkind speech she uttered. After that, she was comforter, +confidante, friend, and she was almost sorry to see the endurance +of Maude’s grief. “You have your fine house and your carriages +still,” she said, as the young wife sat on the ground at her feet +in the abandonment of her sorrow; “you could never have +married Francis Tredethlyn for any other reason than the wealth +he could give you. What does it matter to you whether he is +true or false? You never loved him.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“No,” answered Maude, naïvely, “I suppose not. But it is +so shameful of him to care for anybody else. And from what +Harcourt Lowther says, he does care for that horrible person; +and to leave me, Julia, day after day, and to be—there—all the +time—in a garden—smoking—looking as much at home as if he +had lived there all his life—I never can forgive him, Julia!”</p> + +<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_297'>297</span>“Of course not,” Miss Desmond replied promptly; “but I +don’t see that you need make yourself so very unhappy about +his conduct. You will have a formal separation, I suppose. +Your papa, or your papa’s solicitors, will manage that, no doubt; +and you will live quietly in a smaller house than this. You will +not be able to go so much into society, you know; for it is so +difficult for a woman who is separated from her husband to +escape scandal, however careful she may be,” Julia added, with +considerable satisfaction. It is so nice to sit in the dust and +mingle our sympathetic tears with those of the fallen powers +who have lately queened it over us.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Maude’s sobs redoubled.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Society!” she exclaimed. “I hate society! Yes, it’s no use +talking, Julia. I know what you’re going to say about my +going out to three parties a night, and so on; but I don’t like +it—nobody likes it. They get into the whirlpool, and there they +are. If you go to Mrs. A.’s Thursday, you must go to Lady +B.’s Friday, or you offend her; and if you go once, you must go +on going, or it seems as if you didn’t like the people you met; +and then, if you don’t ask people, you are accused of dropping +them; and if you ask strange people, you are accused of picking +them up; and if you always ask the same people, your parties +are called slow; and if you ask different people, you are called +capricious. I am so tired of the world, Julia,” sighed Mrs. Tredethlyn. +“When I drive any distance to dinner on an autumn +evening, I always envy the people who live in little villas, and +drink tea at seven o’clock in pretty parlours that I can see in +the firelight. They seem <em>so</em> happy. I never hear a muffin-bell—don’t +laugh, Julia; but there <em>is</em> something peculiar in a +muffin-bell—without thinking how hollow my life is, compared +to the lives of the people who eat the muffins. And then I +fancy that I should have been so much happier in a pretty +little cottage in St. John’s Wood, with a tiny, tiny back-garden +sloping down to the canal, and a still tinier garden in front for +Floss to bark in. I used to think sometimes,” continued Maude +dropping her voice and speaking with some slight embarrassment, +“that Francis and I would get to understand each other +better by-and-by, and that we should lead quite a Darby-and-Joan +sort of life, doing a great deal of good, and going out much +less. But, of course, that hope is quite gone now. I can never +endure his society again. I could never trust him. And oh, +Julia, I did trust him so implicitly! I had such a belief in his +goodness that I despised myself for not being better worthy of +him. And to think that he should deceive me so cruelly; that +he should have been deceiving me all along, leading a wicked +life amongst wicked people for his own pleasure; when I fancied +<span class='pageno' id='Page_298'>298</span>that he was driven from his home by my indifference, and reproached +myself so bitterly for being wanting in my duty to +him.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>In this strain poor Maude discoursed at intervals for some +hours. Julia was very patient, sympathetic even, in a hard +kind of way; but she bore with all her weight upon the evidence +of Francis Tredethlyn’s perfidy, and she drained the cup of her +triumph to the very dregs.</p> + +<p class='c008'>It was not till the next morning that the letter which Francis +had left in the library was delivered to his wife. She was sitting +in her boudoir, with an untasted breakfast before her, and the +sympathetic Julia on the other side of the table, when her maid +brought the missive, which a housemaid had discovered at daybreak +on her master’s table, two or three hours before Mr. +Tredethlyn’s valet found the little bedroom behind the library +untenanted, and perceived that his master had not slept at home.</p> + +<p class='c008'>The Cornishman’s letter was very simply worded. Maude +opened it hastily in the hope that it might contain some justification +of her husband’s conduct. But he did not even allude +to his delinquencies, and confined himself to bidding an earnest +and friendly farewell to the wife who had never loved him. +Tears of disappointment, humiliation, regret, poured slowly +down Maude’s cheeks as she read the letter. It was the first +time Francis had written to her since her marriage; and there +was something almost strange to her in the sight of his bold +commercial hand, whose accustomed regularity had been a little +disturbed by the writer’s agitation.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“<span class='sc'>My very dear Wife</span>,—I write to you for the first time since +it has been my privilege to address you by that sacred name. +If I could tell you the pride and happiness I once felt in that +privilege, when first you laid your hand in mine, when first I +heard you called by my name, I should be a very different +person from what I am; and then it is possible this letter need +never have been written. I write to bid you good-bye, Maude; +and I think the best proof I can give you of my love is the proof +I give you now, when I bring my mind to the necessity of our +separation, and resign myself to the knowledge that I may never +see your face again upon this earth.</p> + +<p class='c010'>“I will not tell you how soon I discovered your indifference—how +soon another person demonstrated to me that your feeling +towards me was even something worse than indifference; that +it was dislike and contempt which I inspired in your mind. My +dense ignorance of the world, and your amiable nature, would +have prevented my making this discovery of my own accord. +But there are always plenty of those ‘good-natured friends’ the +<span class='pageno' id='Page_299'>299</span>man in the play talks about. <em>I found such a friend.</em> If you +have any curiosity upon the subject, Rosa Grunderson, who is a +good honest-hearted little girl, will tell you the name of the +man who opened my eyes to the full misery of my position. In +writing this, Maude, I have no thought of reproach against +<em>you</em>. To me you have been and always will be something so +bright and lovely as to be amenable to none of the common laws +which govern common natures. When you offered to be my +wife, you yielded to a generous impulse; and it is I who deserve +reproach for having been so base in my blind selfishness as to +accept the sacrifice you were willing to offer in repayment of a +fancied obligation. I cannot undo the past; but I can at least +set you in some manner free from the fetters you forged for +yourself under the influence of that brief enthusiasm. So +long as I live, one of the miseries of my life will be the knowledge +that I shut you out of a brighter fate; that I deprive you +of a more worthy companion; that the greatest sacrifice I can +make in atonement of the past will only make you the lonely +widow of a living husband. But I can at least rid you of the +society of a man whose presence inspires you with disgust and +loathing. O Maude, I am quoting your own words; spoken so +deliberately, so coldly, that I should be indeed mad and cowardly, +were I to shrink from accepting them in their fullest import. +I might have doubted until to-night; I might have hugged +myself with the notion that a liar and a scoundrel, for his own +base purposes, had taught me to think myself despised and +disliked; but your own lips have spoken, and I can doubt no +longer. Oh, my darling, my pet, my beloved, this seems so like +a reproach; but it is not, it is <em>not</em>.</p> + +<p class='c010'>“I am going to South America. When you read this, my +preparations will no doubt have begun. If possible, I shall sail +immediately. Of all the men who ever left England for that +fiery young world out yonder, there was never, perhaps, any one +better adapted to be happy and successful there than I am. +I bid good-bye for ever to the idle dissipations, the drunken +orgies in which I have sometimes found distraction, but never +happiness. And I begin a new life in a new field of labour. +My uncle’s money has been the root of all my misery, and I +shall take very little of that useless gold to the other shore. I +don’t think I was ever guilty of any great folly while I was a +poor man; but since I have been a rich one, my life has seemed +one long mistake.</p> + +<p class='c010'>“I write so much about myself and my own plans because I +do not want the memory of me, or of any sorrow which I may +feel in this parting, to cloud the brightness of your future; and +I understand your generous nature well enough to know that +<span class='pageno' id='Page_300'>300</span>you will be happier if you can believe that I am happy. O +Maude, if you could know how anxious I am that the life before +you should be a bright and happy one, you might almost forgive +me for the pain my selfish folly has inflicted upon you! +My poor, generous-hearted girl! my innocent darling! you +thought it was so light a thing to link your life to the life of a +man whom you could not love; and you have borne your burden +so quietly. I cannot release you from the chain that binds +you to me, but I will do my best to make that chain a light +one. And, for the rest, I go to a country in which life and +death walk hand in hand together. I take with me all an +ignorant man’s love of adventure, a soldier’s indifference to +danger. Wear your chain patiently, darling,—you may not +have to wear it long. But one word of warning from the man +who has loved you so foolishly, and, until this night, so selfishly. +You have married hastily once. Weigh well what you do if +ever you marry again. If you accepted for your husband an +ignorant West-country boor when you married me, I was at +least an honest man. If I die, Maude, and you are free to +make a second marriage, be sure that the husband of your +choice has something of your own noble character; as well as +some smattering of the accomplishments that please you, and +the tricky jargon about art and literature which passes for +cleverness. I was anxious once to make myself a gentleman +for your sake, Maude; and when we have been visiting together, +I have listened to the men’s talk, for I wanted to find out how +it was done; and you could never guess how spurious some of +that brilliant conversation sounds to a man who <em>only</em> listens. +I used to read some of your Mudie books in my own room +sometimes of a morning,—Froude, and Carlyle, Burton, Barth, +and so on; and I’ve heard men laying down the law about +them at night, and I have known from their talk that they +hadn’t read a page of the book itself, and were only airing the +second-hand opinions picked up out of a review.</p> + +<p class='c010'>“I saw you shudder once, Maude, because I didn’t know it +was the right thing to say ‘Barkley Square;’ and pronounced +the word as it is spelt. But oh, what bosh I’ve heard the +Barkley-Squarers talk sometimes about things I do understand! +I’ve heard a man at a dinner-party hold forth about our convict +system sometimes, and transportation, and Van Diemen’s Land, +till I’ve been inclined to get up and do something to him with a +carving-knife; and oh, the self-satisfied manner of the creature, +and the way he has lifted his eyebrows and looked at <em>me</em>, if I +ventured to express any opinion upon the subject! In South +America there may be fever and disease, perhaps—privation, +danger; but there will be no Barkley Square. I may meet +<span class='pageno' id='Page_301'>301</span>with Aztecs, who may maltreat or even assassinate me; but +they won’t have little bits of glass that they can’t see through +to hitch into their eyes whenever I speak to them. And they +won’t lift their eyebrows and begin to whisper about me the +moment I enter a room. And I shall never hear them say, +‘Oh, the <em>rich</em> Tredethlyn, is it? Gad, what a clodhopper!’</p> + +<p class='c010'>“Why do I write about these things, Maude, when I am +writing to bid you good-bye for ever? Only because I want +you to believe there is <em>something</em> wanting even in the perfect +world in which you live. If my death should set you free in +your youth, marry again, dear, by all means; but marry a man +whose truth and loyalty have been proved by a life of unblemished +honour; marry a man who has set his mark upon the +age—who has <em>done something</em>; for such a man is scarcely likely +to be a scoundrel. Above all, darling, accept my warning +against <em>one</em> man: <em>do not marry Harcourt Lowther</em>.</p> + +<p class='c010'>“All the privileges that you have enjoyed during your bondage +you shall retain in your freedom. Before sailing, I shall +make my will, in which you will be left residuary legatee, and +recipient of the bulk of my fortune. While I live, your income +will be large enough to support the style in which you have +lived during the past year; and there will be a wide margin left +for the indulgence of every impulse of your generous heart. I +shall place full directions as to the management of my fortune +in the hands of my solicitors, Messrs. Kursdale and Scardon; +and they will call on you by my direction to explain your position +immediately after receiving my instructions. You will find +yourself the mistress of the larger part of the income derived +from my late uncle’s investments and from the Cornish estate, +and you will have no further trouble than to sign your name +now and then, when the lawyers want you to do so. In the +interim I enclose a cheque for £500, so that you may not be +without ready money. Your father’s affairs are now, he tells +me, in a very easy state, and I do not leave him in troubled +water. He may consider you his creditor for the interest of the +thirty thousand sunk in his business; and I don’t suppose he +will find you a very importunate one.</p> + +<p class='c010'>“And now good-bye indeed. I leave you with all confidence +in your noble heart, your high principles. You are too good and +pure to be otherwise than happy. Far away on the Pampas, +lying under canvas, with the long silvery trail of the moonlight +on the grey expanse beyond my tent, the whisper of faint winds +among the long grasses sounding in my ears, I shall think of +you, and see you happy in the old English garden at Twickenham, +loitering on the terrace by your father’s side. In that +trackless loneliness, fever-parched perhaps, and far away from +<span class='pageno' id='Page_302'>302</span>the chance of water, I shall think of the blue English river, but +<em>never</em> think of it without seeing your image standing by the +tide, your bright face reflected in the glassy stream. Oh, Maude, +I have loved you so dearly, so fondly! and now that it comes to +saying good-bye, it seems almost as difficult to tear myself from +this lifeless sheet of paper, as it would be to take my lips away +from yours in a last long kiss. My pet, my darling, God bless +you, and good-bye! Think of me sometimes; but never with +pain. Some midnight, when you are waltzing in a crowded +ball-room, with a brazen band braying in your ears, and the +hum of a hundred voices round about you, think that in some +savage wilderness a man is kneeling under God’s blue sky, praying +for you as few people are prayed for on this earth; think +sometimes, if a special peace comes down upon you, like the +cool shadow we have watched drop slowly upon the river when +the sun was down, think, darling, that I am saying, ‘God keep +and guard her safely through the night! God fill her heart with +peace and gladness, whether she sleeps or wakes!’</p> + +<p class='c010'>“And so, my own dear wife, for the first and last time in my +life, I sign myself your true and loyal husband,</p> + +<div class='c011'>“<span class='sc'>Francis Tredethlyn</span>.”</div> + +<p class='c007'>Julia had fluttered out of the room and into the little conservatory, +where there were always faded leaves to be snipped +off, or bird-cages to be replenished with fresh water. Miss +Desmond, in her darkest mood, was too much a lady to sit by +and stare while Maude possessed herself of the contents of her +husband’s letter. She lingered among the twittering canary-birds +and sprawling ferns so long as she considered that delicacy +demanded she should be absent, and then she strolled back +to the breakfast-table with a look of supreme unconsciousness. +But she gave a little scream as she glanced across the table at +Mrs. Tredethlyn, and flew to the bell. Maude had finished her +letter, which lay in scattered sheets at her feet, and she had +fallen back upon the sofa-pillows in a dead faint.</p> + +</div> + +<div class='pbb'> + <hr class='pb c001'> +</div> +<div> + +<div> + <h2 class='c003'><a id='chapter-XXXVII'></a>CHAPTER XXXVII.<br> <br><span class='fss'>ELEANOR DROPS IN UPON ROSAMOND.</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>It is strange what virtues we are apt to discover in the thing we +have lost. After recovering from her fainting-fit, Maude Tredethlyn +wept as bitterly for the loss of her husband as if he +had been the first choice of her maiden heart. A young lady +told Mr. de Quincey that, being on the point of drowning, she +saw in one instant her whole life exhibited before her in its +<span class='pageno' id='Page_303'>303</span>minutest details, like a vast picture;—and so the young wife, +reading her husband’s solemn farewell, beheld in a moment the +picture of her courtship and married life, and saw how good he +had been to her. Yes, in that one moment a thousand instances—such +trifling instances, some of them—of his goodness and +devotion, his enduring love, his patient self-abnegation, flashed +upon her, and her heart smote her with a bitter anguish as she +perceived her own unworthiness.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I had no right to take his love as I take the love of my +dogs,” she thought; “giving him nothing in return for his devotion.” +At first, as she read her husband’s epistle, she smiled +at his talk of leaving her, and thought how easy a thing it +would be to lay her hand upon his shoulder and draw him down +to his old place at her feet. She forgot all about the cottage +at Petersham when she thought this. And then, as she read +farther and farther, she recognized the solemn meaning of the +letter, and felt that it was indeed a farewell. Then a sudden +mist came between her and the page; all the machinery in +London seemed buzzing and booming in her ears; and she +fell back amongst the downy cushion, whiter than the pure +ground of the rosebud chintz which Harcourt Lowther had +selected for the upholstery of her nest.</p> + +<p class='c008'>She recovered very quickly under the influence of half a +bottle of toilet-vinegar; and then there were more confidences +to be poured into Julia’s ear, when the maid, who was so +sympathetic, and so ravenously eager to know why her mistress +had fainted, was fairly out of the room.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Maude read Julia little bits of the letter, leaving off every +now and then to demand pathetically <em>what</em> she was to do.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“He surely c-c-couldn’t write like that, Julia, if he were +what Harcourt Lowther says he is,” sobbed Mrs. Tredethlyn. +“He says I spoke to him coldly and deliberately. Oh, if he +could only know what a passion I was in! There must be +some horrible mistake; and if there is, what a wretch I must +have seemed to him last night! Julia, advise me! give me +some help! My husband must not go to America. There is a +whole week for me to act in. What am I to do?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“How <em>can</em> I advise you?” asked Julia. “I am so entirely +in the dark—and you too. If Mr. Tredethlyn had given you +<em>any</em> explanation of his presence at that strange house, domiciled +so familiarly with that strange woman, you might accept it—if +you could—and believe him. But he does not even attempt to +explain or to justify his conduct. He passes it over in a manner +which, I must confess, seems very ominous. To me, Maude, +his silence is a tacit confession of his guilt.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Poor Maude turned the leaves of her husband’s letter, and +<span class='pageno' id='Page_304'>304</span>looked wistfully at the blotted pages. If she could have only +found some brief explanation of that Petersham business anywhere—in +a postscript—a parenthesis! But there was none; +and Mrs. Tredethlyn put the epistle into her pocket, and looked +at Julia with a very rueful countenance. Unluckily, she forgot +that she had brought no specific charge against her husband, +but had only attacked him in that vaguely denunciatory manner +which is so essentially feminine.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“What a child she is!” thought Miss Desmond, as she +watched her friend’s tear-blotted face and quivering lip. “If <em>I</em> +had a pair of high-stepping ponies to drive in the Park, and a +couple of grooms to sit behind me, I would demand no explanation +of my husband’s absences, though he were to stay away +from me for ten years at a stretch.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>But it was the very reverse of this convenient code of morality +to which Julia gave utterance presently, when she spoke to +Maude.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“You ask me for my advice,” she said. “If I am to give it +frankly, I must own that in your place I would not touch Mr. +Tredethlyn’s hand in friendship until he had accounted fully +and conclusively for his presence in that garden yesterday. I +would permit no reservations on the part of my husband; and I +should be inclined to think that a secret kept from me was only +another name for a wrong done to me.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Maude was silent for some minutes, wiping the tears from +her face, and trying to escape from the demonstrative sympathy +of a Skye terrier, who had been frantic at the sight of his mistress’s +distress; and then she exclaimed, with sudden energy +that almost startled Miss Desmond,—</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Yes, I will take your advice, Julia; and Francis <em>shall</em> explain +himself—as—as I’m sure he can.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>This was a challenge which Julia was too wise to take up; +for she saw that the wind had set violently in Francis Tredethlyn’s +favour since Maude’s perusal of his letter.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I will insist upon an explanation from my husband; but +before seeing him I will do what I should have done yesterday. +I will go to that cottage at Petersham, and <em>see</em> the lady who +was sitting in the garden with Francis yesterday afternoon. It +is my right as a wife to know my husband’s friends.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“You will see the—person,” exclaimed Julia, on the tips of +her lips, as the French say.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I will.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Well, perhaps, after all, it is not a bad plan,” answered +Miss Desmond, after a pause. “And if you <em>do</em> see that person, +I dare say you will hear something unpleasant,” she thought: +“it is only fair there should be some counterbalance to your +<span class='pageno' id='Page_305'>305</span>grooms and ponies, even beyond Pickford’s vans, and the sharp +corner in Dean Street, Park Lane.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Julia, you will go with me?” asked Maude, putting down +her Skye terrier. “No, Floss, not to-day. Oh, I wonder +whether <em>you</em> were ever married, and had this sort of thing to go +through!—You’ll go to Petersham with me, won’t you, Julia +dear?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Of course I will,” answered Miss Desmond promptly; “it +is a part of my <span lang="fr"><i>métier</i></span>. But how do you mean to go?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Oh, we’ll drive.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Your ponies?” asked Julia, spitefully.</p> + +<p class='c008'>The “steppers” were a late acquisition. Maude’s childish +cry of rapture at the sight of the Countess of Zarborough’s +equipage had sent Francis off to Tattersall’s to bid for a pair of +black ponies that Harcourt Lowther and his set had pronounced +“clippers.” You see an ignorant man’s love is such a vulgar +passion that it will express itself in this sordid way.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Oh, Julia,” cried Maude, “how <em>could</em> you? As if I would +drive those frivolous ponies with a frivolous parasol fastened to +my whip, and those two listening grooms behind me, when my +heart is almost broken by Frank’s conduct.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Then you will go in the barouche?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Yes, and I can leave the carriage some distance from the +house,” Maude answered, with her hand upon the bell; “and +we’ll go at once, Julia dear,—if you’re sure you’ve finished +breakfast,” added Mrs. Tredethlyn, looking piteously at the cup +of stagnant chocolate and unbroken roll, which bore witness to +her own incapacity to eat or drink.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Of course Julia declared that she had breakfasted—as completely +as a companion had any right to breakfast, she inferred +by her manner; so the two ladies adjourned to their apartments. +Mrs. Tredethlyn found her maid in her dressing-room, oppressed +by such tender anxieties with regard to the adjustment of +Maude’s bonnet and shawl, that she was not to be shaken off +till her mistress stepped into the barouche, and even then contrived +to be the medium of communication with the coachman, +to the setting aside of a stolid Jeames, who was so utterly weary +of life in general as not even to be often interested in other +people’s business.</p> + +<p class='c008'>The confidante in white muslin is apt to have a hard time +of it when Tilburina’s affairs go badly; but Julia endured her +burden with sublime patience. Maude, bewailing the inconstancy +of her husband one moment, and lauding his devotion +in the next, might now and then degenerate into an inconsistent +bore; but, at the worst, she was more endurable than Maude +insolently happy,—a radiant floating creature, all lace flounces +<span class='pageno' id='Page_306'>306</span>and gauzy sleeves, like one of Mr. Buckner’s portraits. Julia +enacted her part of confidante very creditably during the drive +from Stuccoville to Petersham, and submitted graciously to be +left in the carriage, in a shady curve of the winding road, with +the Skye terriers and the last new novel to keep her company, +while Mrs. Tredethlyn went alone to face her rival.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Perhaps Maude’s heart sank just a little with something +akin to fear, as she tripped along the dusty road in dainty +high-heeled boots and flounced petticoats, whose embroideries +flickered to and fro in shadowy arabesques upon the sunlit +ground. She was not at all strong-minded. Imagine Waller’s +Sacharissa stepping out of her coach in Eastchepe, with a +negro page behind her, and one of the Duchess of Portsmouth’s +favourite spaniels nestling in the perfumed lining of her muff, +bent upon a visit to a money-lender; or Pope’s Belinda alighting +from her sedan to attend a meeting of creditors. Imagine +anything that is incongruous, or absurd, or impossible, and it +will be scarcely more out of keeping than this picture of Maude +Tredethlyn going alone to meet her rival, under the shelter of a +point-lace parasol. And yet this injured young wife was as +sincerely miserable as if she had worn sackcloth and ashes, or +the sombre draperies which Miss Bateman has made so familiar +to us in her impersonation of the jilted Leah.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Mrs. Tredethlyn went straight to the cottage with the old-fashioned +iron gate and the ivy-bordered wall. A womanly +instinct guided her, as by a kind of inspiration, to the spot +where she had seen her husband so much at home with a +nameless and unknown creature. An air of prim respectability +pervaded the place, which Maude inspected as she waited for +admission, and peered inquisitively through the iron scroll-work. +There were none of the rose-coloured curtains and +china flower-stands, the yelping lap-dogs and twittering birds, +which Mrs. Tredethlyn had been taught to associate with those +inhabitants of an outer world, in whom she perceived only overdone +imitations of herself. Everything here had a prim countrified +prettiness of its own; and looking across the smooth +lawn, Maude saw a slender girlish figure in a cotton dress +bending over a flower-bed, while a little boy stood by with a +tiny watering-pot, whose contents he dribbled industriously over +his own toes.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Maude’s summons was responded to by an elderly woman in +black. She was very grim and stern, as people who dote upon +small children usually are; and she was no other than the +eminently respectable person at Chelsea, who wore rusty bombazine +in mourning for the better days which lay far back in +some remote period beyond the memory of her oldest acquaintance. +<span class='pageno' id='Page_307'>307</span>This person carried Maude’s card to the lady in the cotton +dress, and then swooped down upon the little boy with the +watering-pot, and carried him away struggling.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Maude, still without the citadel, watched the girlish face as +it bent over her card. She expected astonishment, confusion, +defiance,—anything except what she saw, which was a half-pleased +smile, a look of hesitation, and then a little glance +towards the gate, and a cry of remonstrance to the elderly +person now invisible.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Oh, Mrs. Clinnock, how could you leave that lady outside? +The key! ah, I see it’s in the gate.” Maude’s fancied rival had +crossed the little lawn by this time, and Rosamond was only +separated from Eleanor by the iron scroll-work. “Dear Mrs. +Tredethlyn, how very rude you must think my nurse! But so +many people have called, out of mere curiosity I am sure, and +I am so afraid of strangers—Francis knows that—for he knows +how often he has begged me to see you; and it was only yesterday +that I gave way, and said he might tell you all about me. +But I didn’t think you would come so soon,” said Rosamond, +with sudden tears welling up to her innocent brown eyes. She +had opened the gate and admitted Maude while she talked, and +the two women were now standing face to face.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Mrs. Tredethlyn’s mystification was depicted upon her countenance, +which at first expressed only her complete bewilderment; +then a chilling expression came over her face, a scornful +smile curved her lip, and she looked at her rival with her head +poised as haughtily as ever Eleanor’s could have been when she +offered Lord Clifford’s daughter that agreeable choice between +the bowl and the dagger.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Oh, I see,” she thought; “this person is trying to disarm +my suspicions by her cool impertinence.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“It was so kind of you to come,” murmured Rosamond, +timidly. She was beginning to feel rather afraid of this haughty +lady, who made no response to her warm greeting. “I did not +think that I should see you so soon.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“No, I dare say not,” answered Mrs. Tredethlyn; “I should +scarcely imagine that you expected to see me at all.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Rosamond, otherwise Susan, clasped her hands and flushed +crimson to the roots of her hair.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Ah, then, you too are unkind, like my father,” she cried +piteously. “You do not believe what Francis told you.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Maude was almost too indignant to remark that piteous +accent. It was not a gentle creature in distress that she saw. +Jealousy looks through a medium that distorts the simplest +objects into evil and threatening shapes. Mrs. Tredethlyn +imagined that she beheld a shameless adventuress, who sought +to disarm her justifiable suspicions by social histrionics.</p> + +<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_308'>308</span>“By what right do you call my husband by his Christian +name?” she asked, indignantly.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“By what right!” stammered Susan, alarmed by the angry +tones in which the question had been asked. “What else should +I call him? I have called him Francis all my life, except when +we were children, and then I called him Frank. Oh, he has +been so good to me, Mrs. Tredethlyn! and he knows that the +marriage was a real one. Oh, pray, pray don’t look so coldly at +me! don’t doubt my word and his. I am as true and pure a +wife as you are, though I have no husband’s arm to lean upon, +though even the name my husband gave me may be a false one.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Maude stared at the earnest face in new bewilderment. Not +even jealousy could distort the expression of that face into anything +but innocence.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“What does it all mean?” she cried at last; “who and what +are you?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Susan Turner, Oliver Tredethlyn’s daughter and Francis +Tredethlyn’s cousin,” answered Susan, considerably puzzled in +her turn; “who else could you suppose me to be, Mrs. Tredethlyn? +Surely Francis told you all about me, or you could +never have known where to find me.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“No, he told me nothing,” exclaimed Maude; and then she +pounced suddenly upon poor astonished Susy, and kissed her +as she had never in all her life kissed any one before.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Oh, you dear!” she cried; “oh, you darling! To think +that you should be only his cousin after all, when I thought +that—when I was wicked enough to think⸺”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Mrs. Tredethlyn did not say what she had thought, but +bestowed another shower of kisses upon Susan.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“You pet!” she exclaimed; “and to think that I should +never guess you were his cousin; and that he should never +tell me, the silly fellow! And he let me go on at him too last +night as if he had committed all sorts of crimes, and did not +even deny them. And you are like him too. Yes, I’m sure you +are; there’s an expression about the eyes. Yes, there really is. +Oh, how dearly I shall love you! I remember Francis speaking +of you once; but he was very reserved upon the subject, and I +did not like to question him. And so you really are his uncle +Oliver’s daughter! then we are cousins, you know, dear; almost +sisters—and I never had a sister—or even a friend who was +<em>quite</em> like a sister,” added Maude, with a remorseful recollection +of Miss Desmond waiting in the carriage.</p> + +<p class='c008'>She could have run on for an hour at a stretch, in her delight +at the discovery that her husband was not a villain. The two +women walked up and down the lawn together, while Susan +related all her sad little history, and received Maude’s tender +assurances of sympathy and love.</p> + +<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_309'>309</span>Mrs. Tredethlyn was told how good her husband had been to +his friendless cousin; and was pleased to dwell fondly on the +story of Frank’s kindness, his selection of that pretty house, +his purchase of the furniture, and, above all, his goodness to +the little boy.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Maude wanted Susan to go straight home with her in the +carriage; but the Cornish girl clung to her sheltered home, and +the iron gate that screened her from intrusive strangers.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I am not used to the people amongst whom you live,” she +said; “it is very kind of you to wish to take me—but I could +never be happy amongst strangers; and Robert and I are <em>so</em> +happy here.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“And I came to break in upon your happiness like a horrible +jealous fury,” cried Maude; “but you see good has come out of +evil; for now we have met, we shall love each other dearly always, +shan’t we, Susan? Call me Maude, please. And oh, my +dear Susan, I have all sorts of troubles still to go through; for +Frank was so offended by what I said last night, that he has +written me a dreadful letter, in which he says he means to sail +for America directly. But of course he won’t. He never could +leave me like that, could he, dear? And when I leave you, I +shall drive straight home; and if he hasn’t been home, I shall +go on to his solicitors, Messrs. Something and Something, +Gray’s Inn,—I shall know their names when I see them in the +Directory,—and of course they’ll know his address wherever he +is; and I shall go to him, and ask him to forgive me for having +behaved so badly, and to-morrow he and I will come together, +Susan. And now kiss me once more, dear, and <span lang="fr"><i>au revoir</i></span>; for +I have a friend waiting for me in the carriage a little way off; +and if her book doesn’t happen to be interesting, I’m afraid +she’ll be cross, for I am sure I must have been an unconscionable +time.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>There was a little embrace, and then Susan opened the gate +and Maude tripped away. The vulgar gravel seemed like empyreal +air under her high-heeled boots this time; so changed +were her feelings since she had discovered how deeply she had +wronged her husband by the shapeless jealousies that Harcourt +Lowther had inspired in her breast.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Julia looked with astonishment at her friend’s altered countenance +as Maude apologized for the length of her absence, +while the <span lang="fr"><i>blasé</i></span> footman let down the steps; she was still more +astonished when the carriage drove townwards, and Maude +gushed into French, to the discomfiture of the footman, who +had a habit of looking behind him for imaginary vehicles when +his mistress’s conversation happened to interest him.</p> + +<p class='c008'>In French, Maude informed Julia that the mythic rival had +<span class='pageno' id='Page_310'>310</span>melted into a “little cousin,” who was “all that there is of the +most charming,” “an all young girl,” “a candid angel,” whom +Mrs. Tredethlyn was ready to take to her heart forthwith. +Julia found it a great deal harder to sympathize with Maude’s +happiness than with her misery.</p> + +<p class='c008'>But the happiness did not last very long; for on inquiry at +Stuccoville, Maude found that her husband had not been home; +and on penetrating Holborn-wards to Gray’s Inn, to the disgust +of the languid footman, she met with a second disappointment +in the offices of Messrs. Kursdale and Scardon, who had heard +nothing of the absent Mr. Tredethlyn. After this Maude drove +homewards with a very sad countenance, and was glad to shrink +from even Julia’s sympathy, and to hide herself in her own +rooms, where she paced disconsolately to and fro, listening for +the crunching wheels, and banging door of a hansom cab, and +stopping every now and then to look hopelessly out into the +monotonous street.</p> + +</div> + +<div class='pbb'> + <hr class='pb c001'> +</div> +<div> + +<div> + <h2 class='c003'><a id='chapter-XXXVIII'></a>CHAPTER XXXVIII.<br> <br><span class='fss'>GONE.</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>All through the dreary day, and far into the still more dreary +night, Maude Tredethlyn waited and listened for her husband’s +coming. She could not believe that he would hold to the purpose +so earnestly expressed in his letter. His resolution had no +doubt been fixed as the Monument itself while he wrote, for he +had written immediately after his wife’s unjustifiable denunciation +of him; but surely long before the time came for action +Francis Tredethlyn’s purpose would waver, and the faithful +slave would come back to his place at the feet of his mistress. +In any case he would surely seek some explanation of Maude’s +anger.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“He never could be so cruel as to leave me because of a few +foolish words,” thought Mrs. Tredethlyn; “he could not be so +unjust as not to give me the opportunity of explaining myself.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>But on reading Francis Tredethlyn’s letter for the third or +fourth time, Maude discovered how complete the estrangement +was that had divided her from her husband. The indignant +reproaches inspired by unreasoning jealousy had been received +by Francis as the deliberate utterance of a contemptuous dislike +that had reached a point at which it could no longer be +hidden under the mask of fashionable indifference. Mrs. Tredethlyn +perceived, as she read that mournful letter, that, in her +conduct of the previous night, her husband had only seen the +miserable climax of his married life. He beheld, as he fancied, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_311'>311</span>his wife’s silent scorn transformed all at once into passionate +reproach; and the proud spirit which breathes in all simple +natures had asserted itself in the farewell letter which Maude +read through a mist of tears.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“He thinks I married him for his money, and that I have +disliked and despised him,” she thought sadly. “Ah, if he +could know how often I have reproached myself for being unworthy +of his devotion,—if he could know how my heart has +sunk day by day as I have seen the breach grow wider between +us! I fancied that I had lost his love, and yet this letter is +full of the old devotion.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Maude awoke from the brief morning slumber that generally +succeeds a sleepless night to a second day of suspense. She +did not talk to Julia of her troubles now. They were growing +too serious for feminine discussion or friendly sympathy. Mrs. +Tredethlyn shut herself in her own rooms, and would see no +one. She pleaded a headache, and the plea was no empty +excuse; for when her all-absorbing anxieties permitted her to +remember the existence of her head, she knew that it ached +with a dull heavy pain which all the eau-de-Cologne in her +dressing-case could not assuage. She roamed hopelessly to and +fro between her bedroom and dressing-room, and failed most +utterly in her attempt to hide her distress from the omniscient +eye of her maid.</p> + +<p class='c008'>The second day passed, and there was no Francis. In the +evening Maude despatched a messenger to Mr. Kursdale with a +note of inquiry about Francis: had his solicitors heard or seen +anything of him; and so on. The messenger was to wait an +answer. But as old-established solicitors do not usually reside +in Gray’s Inn, the messenger found only darkness and stout +oaken doors when he obeyed his mistress’s behest. Maude +wrote another letter that evening, addressed to Harcourt Lowther, +and containing only these few lines, hurriedly written and +with all the important words underlined:</p> + +<p class='c015'>“<span class='sc'>Dear Mr. Lowther</span>,—Have you seen my husband since +the day before yesterday? He <em>left home</em> on Tuesday night, +and I have <em>not seen him since</em>. I am <em>terribly</em> anxious about +him. I have <em>been to Petersham</em>, and have <em>seen the lady</em>. We +were <em>quite wrong</em> about her, and I am <em>ashamed</em> of myself for +having been <em>so foolish</em>. She is a <em>near relation</em> of Frank’s; and +his conduct to her has been <em>most noble</em>. Pray find him <em>immediately</em>, +if possible, and show him this letter.</p> + +<div class='c011'><span class="closing">“Yours sincerely,</span></div> + +<div class='c011'>“M.T.</div> + +<p class='c010'>“<i>Thursday night.</i>”</p> + +<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_312'>312</span>A pleasant letter this for Harcourt Lowther to receive the +next day, as he lay helpless on the lodging-house sofa, with his +head and face sadly dilapidated by the effects of his fall under +a shower of broken wine-glasses and cruets.</p> + +<p class='c008'>He groaned aloud as he read Maude’s missive.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Is there any possibility of comprehending a woman’s tactics?” +he muttered. “She writes as if this boor were an idolized +husband. Is it all hypocrisy—or what? So the bubble of +jealousy has burst, and the young person at the Petersham +cottage <em>is</em> a cousin, after all; and Francis has kicked up his +heels; and I lie here as miserably bruised and battered as if I +had just been beaten in a fight for the championship, at the very +time when I most want to be up and astir.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Yes, Mr. Lowther was a prisoner. He had been seriously +shaken by the scuffle with Francis, and had been in the doctor’s +hands since the unpleasant termination of his supper-party. +But this was not the worst. It was the disfigurement of his +handsome face which Harcourt took most deeply to heart. A +black eye or a scarred forehead will keep a man as close a +captive as a warrant of committal to the Tower. At the very +moment when the sudden entanglement of his web threatened +to render all past efforts useless, when the schemer had most +need of his dexterity, Harcourt Lowther found himself an unpresentable +object, and knew that he must spend dreary weeks +of seclusion before he dared emerge into the world once more, +and take up the disordered threads which he still hoped to +weave into a harmonious network. Imagine Paris, with all his +plans laid for the abduction of Helen, brought suddenly to a +standstill by a score of vulgar cuts and bruises, the sight of any +one of which might have restored the lady to a sense of her +duty. Harcourt Lowther, with his face bandaged, felt himself +a contemptible creature, a modern Samson without the glorious +remnant of a Samson’s strength. For the first time in his life +the fine gentleman discovered how much he depended on his +handsome face, and what a lost wretch he would be without it.</p> + +<p class='c008'>He felt a savage rage against Roderick, who strolled in and +out of the room half the morning, dressing and breakfasting by +instalments, smoking, and writing letters, and crackling the +daily papers, as it seemed to Harcourt, more persistently than +newspapers were ever crackled before. <em>He</em> was free to sally +forth after his careful toilet, while his junior lay on that rickety +sofa as furious in his wretched helplessness as some wounded +hyena. Roderick had volunteered to call upon Francis at the +Covent Garden hotel, to demand a reckoning for the scuffle at +the supper-party; but Harcourt declined the friendly offer.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“As soon as I can leave the house, I will go to him myself,” +<span class='pageno' id='Page_313'>313</span>he said. “The fellow’s talk about going abroad is all bombast, +I dare say. He will be sneaking back to his wife’s apron-string +now that I am laid by the heels.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>When Harcourt had read Maude’s letter, he tossed it over to +his brother.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Do you know how to reckon that up?” he asked. “What +does it mean?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Mr. Lowther the elder had by no means a high estimate of +the female character. In his idea of the sex, the woman who +was not a profound simpleton was only something very much +worse than a simpleton.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“The fellow has <em>not</em> gone back to his wife; so that’s one +point in your favour, at any rate,” said Roderick, after reading +Maude’s epistle. “I dare say he’ll go altogether to the bad now, +at a railroad pace, and finish himself off before the year is out. +The lady’s anxious inquiries about her husband may be read in +more ways than one. This letter <em>may</em> be only intended to put +<em>you</em> <span lang="fr"><i>au courant</i></span> as to the state of affairs. Unluckily, that ugly +scar about your nose will prevent your calling on Mrs. Tredethlyn +for some weeks. But I don’t mind being brotherly for once +in a way; and I’ll look in at the Stuccoville mansion this afternoon, +if you like. Virtue is sometimes rewarded, and there is +just a chance that I may see the lovely Grunderson, and improve +the occasion.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Harcourt, after a little deliberation, consented to this arrangement. +His confidence in the honour of his brother was about +as small as it could be; but as the interests of the two Antipholi +were in this instance not antagonistic, he could scarcely have +anything to fear from Roderick’s intervention.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“You can tell Mrs. Tredethlyn that I am seriously ill,” he +said, when his brother was leaving him. “If you could drop a +hint or two about a rapid decline—a secret sorrow undermining +a constitution that was originally delicate—the sword and the +scabbard, and so on, it would only be friendly to do so. Of +course I have seen nothing of Francis since Tuesday, which is +perfectly true; only you need say nothing of Tuesday night—curse +him!” muttered Harcourt, with a lively recollection of the +wounds inflicted by a broken vinegar-cruet, and the pernicious +effects of the adulterated vinegar, as exhibited in his inflamed +eyes. “You can take care to let Mrs. Tredethlyn understand +that her husband has returned to his old haunts and his old +companions; and that any anxiety she may be so absurd as to +feel about him is wasted upon a person who would be the first +to laugh at her folly.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Dear boy, I have not served my country for nothing,” +answered the diplomatist. “You may trust in my discretion +<span class='pageno' id='Page_314'>314</span>and in my power to make the best of an opportunity. The +people who plan a conversation beforehand never are able to +talk according to their programme. The other party doesn’t +give the necessary cues. The man who trusts to the inspiration +of the moment never makes a failure. The divine <span lang="la"><i>afflatus</i></span> is +always right; but you can’t pump the sacred wind into a man +with vulgar bellows. It comes, dear boy; and it will come to +your humble servant, I have no doubt. I shall dine at the St. +James’s, and I’ve two or three places to go to in the evening; so +I leave you to your reflections and the goulard-water. Adieu!”</p> + +<p class='c008'>The diplomatist had no opportunity of serving his brother by +any sentimental hints about secret sorrows and mortal illness; +for Maude sent Julia Desmond to receive her visitor, and to +hear anything he might have to say about Francis. Mrs. Tredethlyn +would see no one and would go nowhere. Julia had +been busy all the morning writing excuses to people whose invitations +had been accepted. Miss Grunderson had called, and +had sent up pencilled supplications upon the backs of cards, +imploring her dear Mrs. Tredethlyn to see her, if only for a few +minutes; but Maude had been inexorable. There are sorrows +which friendship is powerless to soothe; and in the time of such +sorrow noisy friendship is above all things intolerable. Maude +shuddered as she thought of Miss Grunderson’s warm paws and +schoolgirl endearments; so Rosa was sent away disconsolate.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Roderick Lowther would have been very well contented to loiter +in Mrs. Tredethlyn’s morning-room talking to Julia, whose half-haughty, +half-defiant manner had a wonderful fascination for +him; but that young lady gave him no opportunity of dawdling. +She had seen his tactics with regard to Miss Grunderson, and +took care to let him know that she understood his diplomacy; +but she listened to all his insinuations against Francis, and he +saw her eyes brighten as he uttered them.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“She will convey my hints to Mrs. Tredethlyn,” thought the +diplomatist, “and they won’t lose by her interpretation; so I’ve +done that fellow a service, and wasted my morning, since Miss +Grunderson is not to be seen.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>But on leaving Julia Mr. Lowther decided on speculating a +call upon Rosa’s papa. There was always the chance of seeing +the young lady; and as Mrs. Tredethlyn’s house could no longer +afford a platform for the carrying out of Roderick’s matrimonial +schemes, it was absolutely necessary that he should try a bold +stroke and advance matters. He had ascertained Rosa’s address, +and had no difficulty in finding the Grunderson mansion, which +was close at hand. He was not very certain about the number +of the house, but selected it unhesitatingly from its fellows for +the vivid greenness of its blinds, and the intense newness which +<span class='pageno' id='Page_315'>315</span>pervaded every object that was visible through unshrouded windows +of plate-glass. The Grunderson mansion bared its inner +splendours unflinchingly to the eyes of the passer-by; and Mr. +Grunderson’s dining-room, superb in pollard oak, and with the +Grunderson arms blazing on the scarlet morocco backs of the +chairs, revealed itself to the very core of its heart to every +butterman’s apprentice or butcher’s boy who brought his wares +to the area-gate. Thus Roderick Lowther found it very difficult +not to make his perception of Mr. Grunderson, seated at the +head of his table with a substantial luncheon before him, unpleasantly +palpable while he rang the visitors’ bell. Fortune +favoured the diplomatist, for the hospitable millionaire insisted +on his being ushered into the dining-room; very much to the +discomfiture of Rosa, who was partaking of an unfashionable +plate of underdone beef from the sirloin before her papa, and +who had a big bottle containing some yellow compound in the +way of pickle, and ornamented by a blazing label, on her right +hand, and an imperial pint of Guinness’s stout on her left. The +stout and the embarrassment produced by Mr. Lowther’s appearance +combined to dye Rosa’s cheeks with a very vivid +carnation; but the diplomatist would have been less than a +diplomatist if he had not appeared supremely unconscious of +the two bottles and the underdone beef.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Sit ye down, Mr. Lowther, and make yourself at home,” +exclaimed the hospitable Mr. Grunderson. “A knife and fork +for this gentleman, Thomas; and look sharp about it. You’ll +find this here as fine a bit of beef as ever was cut from an Aberdeen +bullock; and there ain’t no bullocks equal to a Scotch +short-horn, go where you will. Let me give you a slice out of +the alderman’s walk, which was a name my father always gave +to the undercut; and a very good father he was too, though he +never thought of my sittin’ down to table upon the very spot +where he built hisself a tool-house forty year ago, when you +couldn’t have got six pound an acre per annum for any ground +about here. There’s a pigeon-pie at the other end of the table, +and there’s some of your foreign kickshaws,—cutlets a la curlpapers, +and mutton-chops a la smashed potato, <em>I</em> call ’em; for +I’m not a young man, Mr. Lowther, and I can’t remember your +<i>soubeeses</i>, and your <i>maintenongs</i>, and your <i>jardineers</i>, and so +on, as my daughter can. We don’t have the men to wait at +lunch, for my daughter says it isn’t manners; and I’m very +glad it ain’t, for I can’t say I enjoy my meals when I have to +take ’em with a couple of fellows shoving vegetable-dishes and +sauce-boats at me every two minutes, and never shoving the +right ones; for I’m blest if I ever knew ’em yet to shove me the +cucumber before I’d half finished my salmon, though they do +<span class='pageno' id='Page_316'>316</span>call themselves experienced servants. Howsomedever, if we +must dine ally Rousse, and wrap our mutton-chops in greasy +paper and call ’em maintennong, we must, and there’s an end +of it; but I don’t mind confessing to you, Mr. Lowther, that +this is the time I make <em>my</em> dinner, and it’s no use frowning at +me, Rosa, for I don’t care who knows it.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Mr. Lowther, whose luncheon generally consisted of a glass +of seltzer-and-sherry and one small biscuit, escaped the infliction +of one of Mr. Grunderson’s plates of beef by a judicious +manœuvre, and helped himself to a morsel of pigeon-pie. But +before doing so, he allowed his eyes to wander about the walls +in contemplation of some impossible conglomerations of brown +rockery and soapsud sky, which Mr. Grunderson called his +Sallivaters; and thus gave Rosa time to dismiss her bottles and +her plate, and to recover from her embarrassment.</p> + +<p class='c008'>After this everything went very smoothly. Mr. Grunderson +expanded under the influence of bottled stout and Madeira, and +was very loquacious; but sinking presently into a rather stertorous +slumber, which he called forty winks, and which generally +lasted about an hour and a half, the <span lang="fr"><i>ci-devant</i></span> market-gardener +left Rosa and Roderick to their own resources. On this Mr. +Lowther would have departed, but the candid Rosa begged him +to remain. She had kept up a visiting acquaintance with most +of her old school-fellows, and as she was perpetually making new +acquaintances, she was positively besieged by callers, and had a +tea-drinking institution, which she called a kettle-drum, almost +every afternoon. The idea of exhibiting the elegant diplomatist +to her feminine circle was eminently delightful to Miss Grunderson; +and as soon as her papa had begun to snore with undisguised +vehemence, she conducted Roderick to the drawing-room, +where there were as many albums, and perfume-caskets, and +ormolu workboxes, and enamelled book-slides, and <span lang="fr"><i>solitaire</i></span> +boards, as would have stocked one of Messrs. Parkins and +Gotto’s show-rooms, and where a grand piano, scattered with +all the easiest polkas in the gaudiest covers, testified to Rosa’s +taste for music.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Miss Grunderson’s kettle-drum visitors began to assemble +almost immediately; and before long Rosa’s drawing-room was +full of young ladies in overpowering bonnets and transparent +cloaks of every imaginable tissue. The male element was very +much in the minority at Miss Grunderson’s gatherings, and was +chiefly represented by speechless younger brothers, who came in +sulky submission to overbearing sisters, and who lounged in uncomfortable +attitudes upon Rosa’s most fragile chairs, spilt their +tea upon the velvet table-covers, rarely moved without knocking +something down, and left dingy thumb-marks in all Rosa’s +<span class='pageno' id='Page_317'>317</span>albums. Amongst such as these Roderick shone like a star of +the first magnitude, and Miss Grunderson exhibited him with +unspeakable pride. The kettle-drum lasted for two mortal hours, +and Mr. Lowther was one of the last to depart, bored to death, +as he told his brother afterwards.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“But a fellow must bring his mind to go through a good deal +if he wants to marry a millionaire’s only daughter in these hard +times,” thought the <span lang="fr"><i>attaché</i></span>, despondently, as he went yawning +to bed. “If my lovely Rosa does become Mrs. Lowther, she +will have to renounce her <span lang="fr"><i>penchant</i></span> for bad French and violent +pink dresses; but she may cram her drawing-room with acquaintance +of <span lang="la"><i>quasi</i></span>-gentility, and drink tea all day, so far as I shall +be concerned in the matter.”</p> + +</div> + +<div class='pbb'> + <hr class='pb c001'> +</div> +<div> + +<div> + <h2 class='c003'><a id='chapter-XXXIX'></a>CHAPTER XXXIX.<br> <br><span class='fss'>TOO LATE.</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>A long miserable week wore itself slowly out after the night in +which Francis Tredethlyn had turned his back upon a house +which he had never been allowed to find a home. Through all +the week there were no tidings of Maude’s departed husband; +but when the week was over, a formal letter from Mr. Kursdale +acquainted her with Mr. Tredethlyn’s arrangements for her +welfare, and with the fact that he had embarked the day before +on board the steam-vessel <i>Kingfisher</i>, bound for Buenos Ayres. +The news inflicted as great a shock upon Maude as if her husband’s +letter announcing his intended departure had never been +written. To the last she had believed, that when the time for +action came, his resolution would fail him all at once, and he would +hurry back to her, faithful and devoted as in the earliest days +of their brief married life, when he had nursed her Skye terriers, +and sat patiently for an hour at a stretch in a haberdasher’s +shop while she selected ribands and laces. She had written him +a penitent letter, and had enclosed it to Mr. Kursdale, entreating +that gentleman to deliver it to his client whenever he saw him. +She had not thought it possible that, even if Francis persisted +in his intention of leaving England, he would leave without an +interview with his solicitor. But when Maude drove post-haste +to Gray’s Inn, and presented herself in the lawyer’s office, she +found that there had been no interview. Francis had communicated +with his solicitor by letter only, and his clear and concise +epistle bore the date of the very day on which he was to start +for Plymouth, whence the <i>Kingfisher</i> was to sail.</p> + +<p class='c008'>The letter thus dated had arrived at the lawyer’s office after +<span class='pageno' id='Page_318'>318</span>business hours; and when Mr. Kursdale opened it next morning, +there was little doubt that the <i>Kingfisher</i> was outward bound +with Francis Tredethlyn on board her. Maude made a confidant +of her husband’s solicitor. A family lawyer is a kind of father +confessor in the matter of secrets, and has generally outlived the +capacity of surprise as completely as those imperturbable disciples +of St. Ignatius Loyola who are irreverently entitled +“crows.” The despondent wife told Mr. Kursdale that Francis +had left home in consequence of a slight misunderstanding—(was +any conjugal quarrel ever yet described by the belligerents as +anything <em>more</em> than a slight misunderstanding?)—and she implored +him to assist her in bringing about her husband’s speedy +return.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“But do you think he has really sailed?” she asked; “do +you think he can have been so cruel as to leave England without +even giving me the opportunity of imploring him to remain?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Mr. Kursdale shook his head gravely.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“There is nothing in his letter to me which indicates indifference +to your wishes,” he said; “it is only a business letter; +but in a practical way it is the strongest evidence of a husband’s +devotion that ever came to my knowledge. We lawyers are a +matter-of-fact set of men, and we are apt to form our conclusions +in a matter-of-fact way. What other people would treat as an +affair of sentiment, we look at as an affair of figures; and I +must say, Mrs. Tredethlyn, that gauged by that standard, your +husband comes out nobly.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“But I want him to come back to me,” Maude exclaimed, +simply; “I don’t want to be rich—or to live like a woman of +fashion. He wrongs me most cruelly when he thinks that I +married him for his money. I married him because he was +good to my father. Do you think I could accept the income +which that letter places at my disposal, knowing that my +husband has left his native country because of me? Tell me +what I am to do, Mr. Kursdale. I know that Mr. Tredethlyn +is unhappy, and that a few words from me would set all right. +What am I to do?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“We must try to send him the few words, my dear Mrs. +Tredethlyn,” answered the lawyer, cheerfully. “South America +is not so very far off nowadays; and you know that even in +Alexander Pope’s time a sigh might be wafted from Indus to +the Pole, by means of ocean postage. We’ll get your letter delivered +to Mr. Tredethlyn as quickly as the improvements of +modern science will allow, you may depend upon it. Shall I +send the letter you enclosed to me the other day? Perhaps +you would like to add something to it—another postscript, eh? +Ladies have such a <span lang="fr"><i>penchant</i></span> for postscripts,” said the lawyer, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_319'>319</span>lapsing into mild facetiousness, which he imagined to be of an +eminently consolatory character. There are people who believe +that a feeble joke is an infallible specific for a deeply rooted +grief.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I will send a clerk off to Plymouth by the next train,” said +Mr. Kursdale, with his hand upon the spring of a little bell +beside him. He spoke as coolly as if he had been talking of +sending a clerk over the way. “If by any chance the <i>Kingfisher</i> +has not sailed when the young man arrives, your husband +will have the letter before dark. If the <i>Kingfisher</i> has sailed, +the letter must be sent on by the next mail. At the worst, +Mr. Tredethlyn may be back in six or seven weeks.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>In six or seven weeks! It seemed a very long time; but on +receiving the lawyer’s letter announcing her husband’s departure, +Maude had fancied that he was lost to her for ever. With +what wonderful intelligence we can perceive the value of anything +we have lost! In your daily walks, O modest collector of +household treasures! you will see a little bit of china, a picture, +an apostle spoon, a quaint old volume in a shop-window,—and, +intending to look in and bargain for it some day when you have +leisure, you will pass it a hundred times, indifferent as to its +merits, half uncertain whether it is worth buying; but you discover +some day that it is gone, and then in a moment the +doubtful shepherdess becomes the rarest old Chelsea, the dirty-looking +little bit of landscape an undeniable Crome, the battered +silver spoon of unquestionable antiquity, the quaintly bound +book a choice Elzevir. The thing is lost; and we regret it for +all that it might have been, as well as for all that it was, and +there are no bounds to the extravagance we would commit to +regain the chance of possessing it.</p> + +<p class='c008'>It was something after this fashion, perhaps, that Mrs. Tredethlyn +regretted her husband, as she drove home disconsolately +after her interview with the lawyer, to await the result of his +clerk’s journey. She would have gone herself to Plymouth if +she could have done any more than the clerk; but she had a +dim belief that if there was infallibility anywhere on earth, it +was to be found in the office of an old-established solicitor, +and she thought that Mr. Kursdale’s accredited agent could not +fail to effect some good.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Her disappointment was very bitter the next day when she received +a note from the solicitor, informing her that the <i>Kingfisher</i> +had sailed twelve hours before the clerk arrived at Plymouth.</p> + +<p class='c007'>After this Maude could only await the result of her letter. +Six or seven weeks seemed such a weary time as she looked forward +to it; and it might be as long as that, or even longer, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_320'>320</span>before any tidings from Francis could reach her. She went to +her father, to pour her sorrows into his ear; but though he +received her very affectionately, she could see that he blamed +her severely for the folly which had driven Francis Tredethlyn +from his home.</p> + +<p class='c008'>She would have gone to stay at the Cedars during this dreary +period; but she had a nervous dread of not being on the spot to +receive any possible communication from her husband, so she +remained amid the grand hotel-like splendour of the Stuccoville +mansion; though her neighbours were daily departing for distant +British watering-places, or on the first stage of continental +wanderings, to toil amidst Alpine glaciers, or to lounge at +German gaming-tables.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Mrs. Tredethlyn was very glad to see London growing empty; +but before her acquaintance departed for their autumnal relaxations +they had ample time to discuss her husband’s disappearance +and her own sudden withdrawal from society. The fact of +that slight misunderstanding, which Maude had been obliged to +confess to the solicitor, had become patent to all Stuccoville +through the agency of loquacious maids and languid footmen, +and had assumed every possible and impossible complexion in +feminine debates. So Maude stood listlessly at one of the windows +in her spacious bedchamber, sheltered by the voluminous +curtains and the flowers in the balcony, and looked despondently +at happy family parties driving away to railway stations with +cargoes of parasols and umbrellas, and deliciously fluffy carriage-rugs +and foot-muffs. Other people always seem so happy. The +lives of those smiling Stuccovillians might not have been unclouded +in their serenity; but Maude watched them very sadly, +remembering how she and her husband might have been starting +in the twilight for the Dover mail, like that merry young +couple from the house over the way.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Surely she must have loved him very dearly, or she scarcely +could have regretted him so much. If she had been questioned +as to the real state of her feelings on this point, she could not +have given any very clear reply to the question. She only knew +that her husband had been very good to her, and that she had +repaid his devotion with neglect and indifference. Maude had +been a spoiled child, it must be remembered, and there may +have been something of a spoiled child’s useless remorse in her +penitence; but she was very penitent. All her life for the last +year had been crowded with proofs of Francis Tredethlyn’s +unbounded love; and, looking back upon them, she could not +remember one instance in which she had been sufficiently +grateful for his affection.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Those silly young men at the Cedars used to make a fool +<span class='pageno' id='Page_321'>321</span>of me with their empty flatteries,” she thought, remorsefully; +“and I treated Frank as I had learned to treat them, accepting +his generous devotion as indifferently as I had accepted their +unmeaning compliments.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>There was one thing that Maude did not remember as she +looked back at her past life, and that was Harcourt Lowther’s +influence. She did not know how much of her indifference to +her husband had been engendered by the subtle sarcasms of +her jilted lover; nor did she know how the schemer had practised +upon her girlish love of society, in order to widen the +gulf that divided her from Francis Tredethlyn. Her errors as +a wife had chiefly arisen from want of leisure. She had found +no time to adapt herself to her husband’s tastes—no time to +elevate and refine him by association—no time to give him any +return for those practical proofs of his affection in the way of +jewels and carriages, thorough-bred steppers, and hundred-guinea +shawls, which he was constantly lavishing upon her; +and, worse than all, she had found no time to inquire how he +passed his life, or in what circles he sought the happiness she +had never tried to provide for him in his home.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I will ask him to complete the purchase of the Berkshire +estate when he comes back to me,” she thought; “and then we +shall be able to begin a new life away from this perpetual +whirlpool of society; and I can drive to the meet when Frank +hunts, and even take an interest in the stables. Country +stables are so pretty; and it’s so nice to see a favourite horse +looking over the door of his loose-box, with a big tabby cat +sitting on the wooden ledge beside him, and honeysuckle blowing +about his head. But one’s horses might as well be at the +North Pole for all one can see of them in a London mews, where +there are always dreadful men in shirt-sleeves, and cross-looking +women hanging up clothes,” mused Mrs. Tredethlyn, with a +vivid recollection of the prospect which all the ground glass in +her fernery could not quite shut out.</p> + +<p class='c008'>While she was thinking very penitently of the past, and +weaving pleasant schemes for the future; while she was perpetually +counting the days which must elapse before Francis +returned to her, always supposing that the remorseful words of +her letter found their way straight to his heart, as she implicitly +believed they would; while she was praying daily and nightly +for his safe preservation in tempest and danger, Maude Tredethlyn +took up the “Times” newspaper one morning as she +loitered listlessly over a lonely breakfast-table, and the first +paragraph that met her eyes was the announcement of the +<i>Kingfisher’s</i> total destruction by fire, and the entire loss of +passengers and crew.</p> + +<span class='pageno' id='Page_322'>322</span> + +</div> + +<div class='pbb'> + <hr class='pb c001'> +</div> +<div> + +<div> + <h2 class='c003'><a id='chapter-XL'></a>CHAPTER XL.<br> <br><span class='fss'>AN IGNOMINIOUS FAILURE.</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>Harcourt Lowther had his copy of the great journal on the +day when Maude read that horrible paragraph. Roderick had +called at Stuccoville during Mrs. Tredethlyn’s seclusion, and +had heard of the Cornishman’s departure, and the name of the +vessel he had gone in, from Julia Desmond. The schemer +turned deadly pale when his brother read him the brief account +of one of those terrible catastrophes which come upon mortal +travellers now and then, to teach them how frail is man’s hold +of that wondrous power by which modern science has learnt +to rule the elements. The coolest villain who ever planned a +comrade’s destruction must surely suffer one sharp pang of +remorse when he knows that the hand which has so often +clasped his own is really cold. To Harcourt Lowther the +wealthy Cornishman had never been anything worse than an +impediment. He was gone now; there was little doubt of +that. Midway between her starting place and her destination, +the <i>Kingfisher</i>, sailing gaily on a placid sea, had succumbed to +a worse foe than tempest or hurricane, and all on board her +had perished. A fragment of charred timber, branded with +the name of the steamer, had been picked up by a homeward-bound +vessel; and in the calm moonlit night the blazing ship +had been seen by distant voyagers a lurid speck upon the +silvery horizon. By these and many other tokens the fact of +the catastrophe had been made known; and in a hundred +British households there was mourning for lost friends and +kinsmen.</p> + +<p class='c008'>After the first shock that came upon him with these sudden +tidings, Harcourt Lowther gave a long sigh of relief.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“It was the fellow’s own doing,” he muttered. “If he had +not made a quarrel with me, this would never have happened. +And he’s gone! Poor lad! He was not such a bad fellow, +after all. Better to die that way than of delirium tremens,” +added Mr. Lowther, with a furtive glance towards a tall smoke-coloured +bottle which was apt to adorn his table very often +nowadays. “And so my Maude is free—at last! Do you +know, Roderick, it seems to me as if I had lived twenty years +or so since my return from Van Diemen’s Land? and now that +the luck turns, and the winning colour comes up for the first +time, I feel as if I had almost outlived the power to care much +about it. Roderick!” cried the invalid, with a sharp suddenness +that startled his brother, “did Folson tell you there was +any serious damage done to my head by that ugly fall the other +<span class='pageno' id='Page_323'>323</span>night? I know he has talked to you about me. I heard you +and him muttering together yesterday, when I was lying half +asleep in the next room.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Mr. Folson was the medical man who had attended Harcourt +Lowther after the scuffle with Francis, and who had brought +all his science to bear for the preservation of the handsome face +without which his patient would have been so small a creature.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Folson said very little about the damage you got in the +row,” the <span lang="fr"><i>attaché</i></span> answered, very coolly; “but he told me you +must drop your liberal consumption of that sort of thing, or +you’d find yourself very speedily in Queer Street.” Mr. Lowther +pointed to the smoke-coloured bottle as he thus addressed +himself to his invalid brother. “While you were teaching that +fellow Tredethlyn to drink himself to death, you ought to have +learnt how to keep yourself alive by not drinking,” he said presently. +“However, I don’t want to say anything unpleasant, +but you really must cut your very intimate acquaintance with +the brandy-bottle, if you want to improve your opportunity, +now that Mrs. Tredethlyn is a rich widow. If you don’t look +sharp I shall throw over the Grunderson, and go in against you.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Harcourt smiled superciliously.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I am not afraid of <em>you</em>, for more reasons than one,” he said. +“Maude is a curious girl. I sometimes fancy my own chance +is not quite so good as it once was. Goethe says that a man +wins in his age the prize he sighs for in his youth. Perhaps, +when I am a pottering old fellow of seventy, I shall have a +great fortune and a handsome wife; only the capability of +caring much for either will be gone. How fond we were of +toffee at Harrow! But all the toffee that was ever manufactured +in Doncaster during the Sellenger week wouldn’t give me +a ray of pleasure now. Madame de Maintenon began to enjoy +herself when she was eighty; rather late in the day, wasn’t it? +My soul is weary, Roderick; and now the chance <em>has</em> come, I’m +not the man I was. Perhaps, after all, the simple truth of the +matter is that I am suffering from an attack of blue devils, +engendered of solitary confinement in this detestable crib. I’ll +tell you what I’ll do, old fellow. As the ugly scar across my +forehead has dwindled into a romantic-looking badge of bygone +prowess, and the variegated hues of my countenance are rapidly +fading into an interesting pallor, I’ll get you to send me round +a hack from Parsons’s, and I’ll take a spin in the Park; there +won’t be many people about at this time of year, and the fresh +air will blow my old self back again, I dare say. I’ll meet you +at the Metropolitan afterwards, if you like,” added Harcourt, +naming an adjacent restaurant at which the brothers had been +wont to dine occasionally.</p> + +<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_324'>324</span>“No, thanks. I dine at the Grundersons’.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“<span lang="fr"><i>Déjà!</i></span> We go fast, my friend!”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“If your military experience had extended farther than the +superintendence of penitent burglars, you might have known +that where the assailing party is weak, a fortress must be taken +quickly, or not at all. I declared myself to Rosa this morning. +She is delighted with the idea of flourishing at foreign courts +in <span lang="fr"><i>écrasant</i></span> pink dresses. How I shall tone her down, poor +child! and what a hard time we shall both have of it before the +scent of the market-garden ceases to cling to her still! I am +to speak to papa Grunderson this evening, over his wine. He +consumes the best part of a bottle of old port every night, and +finishes off at a neighbouring tavern with the gin-and-water of +his early manhood. Rosa tells me that he is an indulgent old +party, and that I shall not have any difficulty in bringing him +to book.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Then you really think of marrying?” asked Harcourt, +thoughtfully.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Really think of marrying? Of course I do. What else +should I think of whereby to improve my fortunes? And +Rosa will not be so <em>very</em> disagreeable after a good deal of toning +down.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I thought perhaps you might have some lingering regard +for⸺that other person.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>The diplomatist turned upon his brother with a frown.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I thought I told you that I didn’t care to discuss that +subject,” he said, haughtily. “Drop it, if you please. There +are plenty of disagreeable things in <em>your</em> life, I dare say, that I +might remember, if I wanted to make myself obnoxious. However, +as you have been existing upon a limited supply of oxygen +for the last six weeks, I suppose you’re privileged to be cantankerous. +I’ll look in at the stables and send you the hack; +and if I find you here when I come home to dress, I dare say +we shall hit it better. <span lang="fr"><i>A bientôt!</i></span>”</p> + +<p class='c007'>Harcourt Lowther had his gallop in the Park, and punished +the livery-stable hack rather severely. It was dusk before he +went back to town, and he left the Park by the Prince’s Gate, +and rode slowly through the gorgeous dismality of Stuccoville. +He walked his horse down the street in which Francis +Tredethlyn’s household had been established. Glimmering +lights burned feebly in the windows on the second floor, but the +gaslit dining-room was blank and empty.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Looking up at the dimly lighted windows, Harcourt Lowther +wondered if Maude Tredethlyn’s heart, set free all at once from +its mercenary bondage, had fluttered back to the lover of her +<span class='pageno' id='Page_325'>325</span>youth. He was strangely tormented by conflicting fancies, and +found it hard to strike the balance between his low estimate of +woman’s constancy and his very high opinion of his own merits.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“She loved me once,” he thought, “and my hold upon her +ought to be stronger now than ever it was. I have quires of +schoolgirl letters filled with protestations of eternal constancy +and reliance in a bright future waiting for us somewhere in the +cloudy distance of our lives. And now the happy future is +ours, my Maude; you are free and you are rich; so we can +afford to build the castle of our dreams, and live in it very +respectably.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Riding slowly homeward through the crowded streets, Mr. +Lowther found it very difficult to shut out of his mind the +picture of a burning ship, and the image of the man whom he +had called his friend, prominent amidst a wild night-scene of +death and horror.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I’m glad I had nothing to do with the fellow’s going in that +vessel,” thought Mr. Lowther, as he tried to shake off the uncomfortable +feeling which oppressed him. “<em>I</em> had no hand in +his mad freak of bolting off to Buenos Ayres; so I needn’t +worry myself about the business. If he had lived to get there +safely, I dare say he’d have been finished off by fever or +small-pox.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Nearly a week elapsed before Harcourt Lowther approached +the woman who had once been his plighted wife, and who was +now free to renew her broken vows as speedily as common decency +would allow her to accept the addresses of a second husband. +The schemer wanted to be sure of his triumph. One +interview with Maude, one look in her face, would be enough to +tell him whether his hold on her was undiminished, whether his +future happiness was secure. Assured of this, he would be +contented to stand apart until the usages of society would permit +him to take his place by her side as her acknowledged +suitor. But he was eager to be quite sure of his position. A +nervous restlessness that was foreign to his temperament had +come upon him since the tidings of the <i>Kingfisher’s</i> destruction +had reached his ears; and he could not endure anything like +uncertainty or suspense.</p> + +<p class='c008'>He called at Stuccoville one morning. He was told that Mrs. +Tredethlyn would see no one; but that Miss Desmond was at +home, and would receive him, if he pleased.</p> + +<p class='c008'>He did please; and was ushered into the morning-room, where +Julia sat writing at a little table near the window. There was +a door opening from Mrs. Tredethlyn’s dressing-room into this +morning-room; and as Harcourt entered at one door, a pale wan +creature in black appeared at the other.</p> + +<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_326'>326</span>It was Maude—so changed that a sudden pang shot through +the schemer’s heart as he looked at her; a sudden pang that +must have been remorse, but which gave place immediately to a +feeling of jealous anger.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Was the loss of her husband so deep a sorrow that it should +change her like this?</p> + +<p class='c008'>She had seen the visitor, and was drawing back, when he ran +to her and seized her hand.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Maude!” he cried, passionately, “I must speak to you. +Surely you are not going to treat <em>me</em> like a stranger.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>She tried to take her hand from his, but he held it firmly and +drew her into the room; as he did so, Julia, who had risen on +his entrance, went quietly out at the other door. Maude and +Harcourt were alone.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“What can you have to say to me?” asked Mrs. Tredethlyn. +“It is cruel of you to force yourself upon me at such a time as +this. I have grief enough and trouble enough without being +tortured by the sight of you.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Harcourt Lowther looked at her aghast.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Tortured by the sight of me!” he repeated.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Yes,” answered Maude, indignantly. “It was your fault +that my husband left me. It was you who planted base +suspicions in my mind when there was no need for suspicion. +If I had gone back to the cottage at Petersham—as I would +have done, but for you—I should have discovered the folly of +my jealous fancies—inspired by you—yes, by you alone. For +when I saw Francis and his cousin, my first impulse was to call +him by his name. It was your exclamation that frightened me; +it was your manner that filled me with absurd alarm. Why +did you poison my mind against the best husband a woman ever +had? How could you be so base as to repay his trusting friendship +with such malicious treachery?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Because I loved you, Mrs. Tredethlyn, and I believed that +your husband had wronged you. Was <em>I</em> likely to be a very +lenient judge of his conduct towards you, when I had loved you +so passionately, and had been jilted by you so cruelly for him? +You questioned me, and I spoke. Can you forget or deny that +I spoke reluctantly? You hang your head, Mrs. Tredethlyn; +ah, I see that you remember.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Yes,” answered Maude, piteously, as she sank into a chair; +“you are right. I made you speak. It was my own jealous +folly from first to last. If others doubted and suspected, I +ought to have trusted him. What a pitiful return I made him +for so much devotion, when I could not even give him my +confidence!” She was silent for some moments, lost in +thought. It was of her husband, and not of the man standing +<span class='pageno' id='Page_327'>327</span>before her, that she was thinking. Harcourt Lowther could +see that.</p> + +<p class='c008'>She looked up at him presently, as if she suddenly remembered +his presence. “Have you anything more to say to me?” +she asked, coldly.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Have I anything more to say! Are you mad, Mrs. Tredethlyn, +that you ask me such a question? I have outraged +propriety perhaps in coming to see you so soon, you will tell +me; but a man who has suffered as much as I have at the hands +of the woman he loves is not very likely to be held back by ceremonial +constraints when the hour comes in which he may claim +atonement for the wrong that has been done him. I respect +your natural sorrow for the terrible fate of your husband; but I +should despise you if you were so false-hearted a prude as to +affect forgetfulness of what is due to me.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Maude looked at him as she had never looked at him before. +Wonder, indignation, disgust—all mingled in the expression of +her countenance. He had woven his network to ensnare a +frivolous shallow-hearted girl, and behold, on the completion +of the schemer’s web, a woman arose in the strength of her +truth and purity, and shook herself free from the toils as easily +as if they had been so much gossamer. “There is something +due from me to you?” she asked, haughtily. “What is it?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“The fulfilment of your broken promise. I have waited, +Maude, and waited patiently. Another man would have revenged +himself on your inconstancy by proving to you that he +too could be inconstant. Hopeless but patient, I have given +you a disinterested devotion which is without a parallel in the +history of man’s sacrifice for the woman of his choice. Now +that you are free, I ask some atonement for the past, some +reward for my patience. Tell me that the past is not quite +forgotten—that the tender protestations which consoled me in +my miserable exile were not utterly meaningless and false. +Why do you look at me like that? Have I been the dupe of +a coquette from first to last, Mrs. Tredethlyn, and does your +husband’s death only leave you free to jilt me again? Have I +been fooled to the top of my bent by a woman who has never +loved me?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“No, Mr. Lowther,” Maude answered, very quietly; “I did +love you once. I look back now, and wonder at myself as I +remember how dearly. But my love died—a very sudden +death.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“When you discovered the advantages of a wealthy marriage +for the penniless daughter of a commercial defaulter,” cried +Harcourt.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“No; my love for you was a girlish fancy, if you like; +<span class='pageno' id='Page_328'>328</span>though Heaven only knows how deeply I felt for you in your +exile—how willing I would have been to resign my imaginary +wealth for love of you, if you had asked me to do so. But you +never did ask that. You did not want the wife without the +fortune. When you came home and found me engaged to +another man—about to sacrifice myself in a mercenary marriage, +as you thought—there was yet time to have exacted the +fulfilment of my promise. I loved you then, Harcourt Lowther. +A word from you, and I would have told Francis Tredethlyn +the truth, and demanded my release. He was far too generous +to have withheld it. But in doing that I should have offended +my father, and I should have come to you penniless. You did +not want me on those terms, Harcourt. The honest indignation +of a disinterested lover never found an utterance on your +lips. You were contented to assume the position of friend and +confidant to your unconscious rival; and it is only since I have +been left alone to think of my past life, that I have fully +understood the dishonour involved in keeping our broken engagement +a secret from my husband. I loved you when you +came back to England, Harcourt. It was a hard battle which +duty had to fight against the unaltered affection of my girlhood. +I prayed to God night and day for strength to do my +duty, and to keep my promise to the man who had a claim +upon me, which you have never known. I prayed for power to +blot your image from my mind; and my prayer was heard. +My first foolish love died on my wedding-day, Harcourt, when +you stood by to see me married to Francis Tredethlyn. From +that hour to this you have been no more to me than any other +man who has paid me the conventional attentions which I +imagined I had a right to receive. If I had ever seen more +than this in your conduct, Mr. Lowther, you would have found +me quite capable of asserting my position.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“The world has chosen to see a good deal more than conventional +courtesy in my attendance upon you, Mrs. Tredethlyn,” +answered Harcourt. He had lost the game. Utterly defeated +in the moment of his expected triumph, he was careless as to +the rest of his play. How can the whist-player, who knows +that he is beaten, be expected to pay any great attention to the +order in which he plays the two or three insignificant cards that +he holds at the close of the rubber? “People have been good +enough to make us the subject of considerable discussion, Mrs. +Tredethlyn,” continued Harcourt. “A man is apt to hear +these things, though they rarely reach the ears of the lady most +interested in hearing them. The people amongst whom we live +have made up their minds about us, I know, and will be considerably +astonished if you throw me over now that you are free +<span class='pageno' id='Page_329'>329</span>to reward the patient devotion which, has endured so much in +the hope of this hour.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>He saw Maude’s look of unutterable scorn; a look which +revealed her to him in a new and higher light, and inspired him +with a more passionate love than he had ever felt for her yet—and +at his worst he had loved her.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Maude,” he cried, in a sudden access of mingled rage and +despair, “why do you goad me to say these things? I know +how detestable I seem to you. And yet, as there is a heaven +above me, I have loved you truly from first to last. Pity me +if, while I prayed for no better fate than to face the enemy’s +guns on an Indian battle-field, I was a coward in social life and +dared not brave genteel poverty even for your sake. Pity me if +I shrank from thrusting myself between you and a wealthy +marriage. I had been poor all my life; and I knew what you +have never learnt—the horrors of a gentleman’s poverty. I +have smiled at your girlish talk of pretty cottages and tiny +suburban gardens; an elegant little drawing-room, in which you +and I might spend the winter evenings together with our books +and music. The poor gentleman’s cottage is never pretty; the +poor gentleman’s drawing-room is never elegant. His wife’s +tastes may be ever so simple, his own aspirations may be ever +so pure; but poverty countenances no taste, permits no aspiration. +His wife is fond of music, perhaps. Heaven help her! +she cannot be sure of an hour in which her piano may not be +seized by the broker. She delights in flowers; but the nosegays +she arranges so gaily to-day may entail a writ for the florist’s +account to-morrow. You would have thought me a model of all +that is noble and disinterested if I had exposed you to such +miseries as these: you think me a scoundrel because I was not +selfish enough to say to you, ‘Reject Francis Tredethlyn and a +life of elegant ease, and accept my devotion and an existence of +penury and trouble.’”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“And you ask me now to fulfil my broken promise? Have +you inherited a fortune? or how is it that your ideas upon +matrimony have altered?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>The schemer flushed crimson to the roots of his hair, and +then grew deadly pale. For the life of him he could not answer +that question. He could not say, “<em>My</em> position is unchanged, +but <em>you</em> are rich. Give me your fortune and the heart I did not +choose to claim when it was unaccompanied by fortune.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Had we not better wish each other good morning, Mr. Lowther?” +Maude said, after a little pause. “Your visit is ill-timed +and most unwelcome. Your presence reminds me of a cruel +wrong done to a noble friend, a devoted husband, whose worth +I have learned only too late; whom I have loved unconsciously, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_330'>330</span>only to discover the depth of my affection when its object is +lost to me for ever.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“You loved your husband!” cried Harcourt, with a cynical +laugh; “you seem determined to astonish me to-day. You +loved your husband?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Yes—dearly and truly; and love his memory better than +ever I loved you. I have learned to think, since I have been +released from your influence; for it was your influence that +regulated my life as well as my husband’s; it was your influence +that kept us asunder, and plunged both of us into a +whirlpool of dissipation. I have had time to think during the +long miserable days and nights in which I have watched for the +coming of him who was never to return to me; and if I had +not discovered the shallowness of your love before my marriage, +I should have made that discovery since. You are base enough +to tell me that the world has linked my name with yours. I +can afford to despise a world in which I have never found real +happiness, and in which I no longer wish to hold a place. I +shall go back to my father’s house, and my life will be one long +atonement for the past. I tell you this, Mr. Lowther, in order +that you may understand that we must be strangers to each +other henceforward.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>She laid her hand upon the bell as she spoke. Harcourt +Lowther stood for some moments looking at her. A strange +compound of passionate admiration and vengeful fury flamed in +his eyes.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I have sometimes wondered at the madmen who murder the +women they have loved; but God help you, Maude Tredethlyn, +if I had a loaded pistol in my pocket to-day!”</p> + +<p class='c008'>He folded his arms, locking them together with a convulsive +suddenness, as if he could only thus restrain the impulse by which +he would have struck her down where she stood defying him; +and then he turned, and slowly left the room.</p> + +<p class='c008'>He had left his hired horse in the quiet street, in charge of a +boy; but the boy’s back was turned when his employer left the +house, and Harcourt Lowther drove back to town in a hansom. +It was only when his brother reminded him of the horse, that +he remembered how he had gone to Stuccoville; and sent a man +to recover the missing steed. After that he left the noisy +regions of the Strand, and wandered across one of the bridges +out to some dismal waste ground in the neighbourhood of +Battersea; a remote and forgotten tract, that was almost as +lonely as an African desert: there he laid himself down amongst +the rubbish of a deserted brickfield, and cried like a child.</p> + +<span class='pageno' id='Page_331'>331</span> + +</div> + +<div class='pbb'> + <hr class='pb c001'> +</div> +<div> + +<div> + <h2 class='c003'><a id='chapter-XLI'></a>CHAPTER XLI.<br> <br><span class='fss'>SUSAN’S GOOD NEWS.</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>Maude Tredethlyn sat alone in her spacious chamber: oh, so +spacious, so splendid, so dreary, so ghastly, with a tall carved +walnut-wood bedstead that was like one of the tombs in Père +la Chaise, only not so lively, and with long panels of looking-glass +shimmering ghost-like in dark walnut-wood wardrobes +and armoires, and <span lang="fr"><i>duchesse</i></span> dressing-tables. She might have +endured her troubles better, perhaps, if her room had been +furnished with white and gold rather than so much funereal +walnut-wood and ghastly looking-glass. She sat alone, thinking +of the husband whom she had lost, and whose worth she +had only discovered when it was too late. She would accept +sympathy from no one. Julia wrote her letters, and saw people +who must be seen, and was very good; but the wayward heart +shrank away from her in its sudden desolation. She had loved +him—she had loved him—and had been ashamed to confess her +real feelings either to herself or to the people who had smiled +upon a mercenary marriage as if it was the most natural thing +under heaven; but who would have lifted their eyebrows in +scornful surprise had they known that she could care for a +person whose boyhood had been spent in a humble old homestead +among the Cornish moorlands. Gliding gracefully through +her frivolous life, tolerably happy in a shallow kind of way, +with more shopping, and driving, and riding, and calling, and +kettle-drumming, and dinner-giving, and horticultural-fête attending, +always to be done than it was in the power of any one +woman to do, except by a perpetual scramble, she had found no +time to consider her position, no time to be aware how entirely +even her most frivolous pleasures depended on the faithful +minister whom no influence could entirely divide from her.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Amongst the papers she had looked over on the library +shelves and tables, where the dust lay thick, she had sometimes +found a sheet of perfumed note-paper, and a list of items in her +own writing—commissions she had given Francis to execute, +troublesome ones sometimes, involving loss of time, and patient +inquiry amongst West-end emporiums—orders for new books, +drawing materials, ferns, music, all the frivolities of her life. +She remembered with a cruel pang of remorse how faithfully +the smallest details had been remembered, how patiently the +most tiresome researches had been conducted, and how very +lightly all this untiring service had been accepted. Circumstances +which she had been too thoughtless to notice at the +time flashed back upon her now, and she remembered how +<span class='pageno' id='Page_332'>332</span>Harcourt Lowther had stepped between her and her husband +even in this commonplace communion—how Francis had been +pushed aside, politely taught to remember what an ignorant and +awkward creature he was when compared to the fine gentleman.</p> + +<p class='c008'>As she sat alone, upon the evening after her interview with +Harcourt Lowther, her husband’s image was more vividly present +with her than it had been at any moment since his departure. +The bright honest face—the faithful loving face—shone +out upon her in the ghastly twilight of her ghastly chamber, +and she thought how pleasant it would have been to be sitting +opposite her husband in the firelight glow of a cosy parlour, +far away from splendid loneliness and carved walnut-wood. +She thought of him with her face hidden in her hands, and her +aching head lying wearily on the sofa-cushion. She thought +of him until a nervous restlessness came upon her, and she +sprang suddenly to her feet, unable to bear the oppression of +that dreary room, or any room in that dreary house.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I must go away somewhere, or I shall die,” she thought; +“this place seems haunted. I will go to papa. He is very +good to me, but he does not understand what I feel about +Francis. People speak so lightly of him, and seem to have +known him so little. If I could talk to any one who really +loved him; if I could talk to any one who knew his goodness as I +ought to have known it—as I do know it, now that he is dead!”</p> + +<p class='c008'>She crossed the room hurriedly, and rang the bell. She had +told her maid to bring lights only when she rang for them, +much to the dismay of that sympathetic young person, who +believed that candle-light and company were eminently consolatory +in all earthly sorrows. When the candles came, Maude +went to a writing-table, and wrote a few hasty lines to her husband’s +simple little cousin. She had written to Susan once +before, to tell her of Francis Tredethlyn’s departure; but the +two women had not seen each other since their first meeting.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“<span class='sc'>My dear Susan</span>,—There is terrible news of your cousin: +it may have reached you before this, perhaps. Will you come +to me? I am so utterly miserable! and I believe that you are +the only person in the world who can understand my sorrow. +Come, dear, I implore you. Ever your affectionate</p> + +<div class='c011'>“<span class='sc'>Maude</span>.”</div> + +<p class='c007'>Mrs. Tredethlyn was a great deal too impatient to wait for +any such commonplace means of communication as the post. +She summoned her maid, and entrusted her letter to that faithful +attendant, with directions that a groom should mount one +of the Park hacks immediately, and ride straight to Petersham +<span class='pageno' id='Page_333'>333</span>with the missive. The maid obeyed; and the groom, who had +made an engagement to go half-price to a West-end theatre, +departed, grumbling sulkily, and determined on punishing the +Park hack for the unwarrantable caprice of his mistress.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Maude slept soundly that night for the first time since the +tidings of the <i>Kingfisher’s</i> fate had reached her, and woke in +the morning to see Susan looking down at her with a smile upon +her face.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Ah, you don’t know,” cried Maude, waking out of a happy +dream to an instant consciousness of her sorrow,—“you don’t +know what has happened: you haven’t heard?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Of what, dear?” Susan asked, gently, as Maude started up +from amongst her pillows feverish and excited.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“The loss of the <i>Kingfisher</i>—the fire—the dreadful fire! +Oh, Susan, you <em>cannot</em> have heard!”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Mrs. Tredethlyn said this, because the girl’s face, though it +was grave and sad, expressed none of that acute anguish which +Susan ought to have felt for her cousin’s untimely fate. She +only looked at Maude with a wondering earnestness.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Yes, it was very dreadful,” she said. “Mrs. Clinnock read +it in the paper, and told me. I am so sorry for all the sufferers. +But oh, Maude, dear cousin, how grateful we ought to be for +the accident that saved Francis from such a fate! If he had +gone by that vessel, dear⸺”</p> + +<p class='c008'>She stopped suddenly, for Maude looked at her with an unnatural +stare, and then fell back unconscious.</p> + +<p class='c007'>No, he had not perished with the ill-fated passengers of the +<i>Kingfisher</i>. Lives as noble, friends as dear, husbands and +fathers, brothers and sons, worth and genius, some tribute from +all that is brightest upon earth,—had gone down to the deep +waters; but Francis Tredethlyn had not made a part in the +mighty sacrifice. When Maude recovered from the deadly faintness +that had come upon her, Susan showed her a letter which she +had received from her cousin,—a letter that had been written in +an hotel at Plymouth <em>after</em> the sailing of the <i>Kingfisher</i>. It was +a kind kinsmanlike letter, stating the arrangements which the +writer had made for the comfort and welfare of his cousin and +her child; and, in conclusion, Francis told Susan that he had +reached Plymouth too late to leave by the <i>Kingfisher</i>, a steamer +which he had intended to go by, and in which he had taken his +berth. Thus left with his time on his hands for some days, he +had resolved on going to have a look at the old neighbourhood +once more.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“It might seem a foolish fancy to many people, but I don’t +think it will to you, Susy,” he wrote. “I want to gather a +<span class='pageno' id='Page_334'>334</span>handful of daisies from my mother’s grave before I leave the +soil that holds her for ever. I want to stand by the old hearth +once more, though God knows what a pain it will be to me to +see strangers in the old home. God bless you, dear, and good-bye! +I shall not write again till I write from the New World.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>This was the close of the letter, which Susan gave Maude to +read. Her first feeling on reading it was unbounded gratitude +to the Providence that had saved Francis Tredethlyn. Her +second feeling was considerable indignation against Francis +himself. The mother of the comic song who bewails her missing +child in such pathetic numbers, and slaps him soundly when +she finds him, is not such a very impossible character.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“It was shameful of him to let me suffer so much,” she +cried, “when a few lines from him would have made me so +happy;” and then she was grateful to Providence again, and +angry with herself for having been angry with Francis; and +then she pounced upon Susan and kissed her.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“What am I to do, darling?” she asked. “I dare say he has +gone off by some other horrible steamer. But wherever he is, +I won’t stop idle in this dreary house. I won’t trust everything +to that slow solemn lawyer. I’ll go to Cornwall myself, +Susy, and find out all about my husband; how long he stayed +there, and when he left. You’ll tell me where to go; won’t +you, Susy?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Of course Susan was ready to give her cousin’s wife all needful +information about that forgotten corner of the earth, Landresdale. +She would have volunteered to accompany Maude to +the western moors, only there was the boy; and Susan had an +idea that if she were to turn her back upon her son for twenty-four +consecutive hours, he would inevitably be seized with +measles or scarlatina in her absence. But Maude declared she +wanted no one to accompany her.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I suppose I must take my maid,” she said; “but I shall +leave her at the inn at Falmouth, and go alone to that queer old +house on the moor, and those queer old people Francis once told +me about.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Julia Desmond had to endure a good deal that morning, for +Maude was radiant when she appeared with Susan at the breakfast-table. +She was so grateful to Susan for hurrying to her in +the early morning.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Every night, when I have gone to sleep, I have thought the +same thing,” she said: “if I could only wake and find it all a +dream—if I could wake to find it only a dream! And this +morning I did wake to find an angel standing by my bed with +the best news I ever heard in all my life. But I am very sorry +for those poor people who were really lost in the <i>Kingfisher</i>,” +<span class='pageno' id='Page_335'>335</span>added Maude, mournfully; she felt that there was something +almost incongruous in her own happiness when so many must +be sorrowful for the destruction of that ill-fated vessel.</p> + +<p class='c008'>While she was making preparations for her departure, Mr. +Kursdale, the solicitor, was announced. He came radiant and +red-faced to tell her the result of inquiries which he had considered +it expedient to have made at Plymouth before taking any +legal steps with regard to the supposed demise of his respected +client; and the result was that Francis had not sailed in the +<i>Kingfisher</i>; and he was very proud and happy to announce to +Mrs. Tredethlyn⸺</p> + +<p class='c008'>He would have gone on in a ponderous manner for some time +longer, if Maude had not interrupted him by the assurance that +she knew all about it.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“You did not ascertain that my husband had left Plymouth +by any other vessel?” she asked.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“No.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Then we may hope he is still in England. I am going to +Cornwall immediately to look for him. At the worst, I shall +there hear all about him.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Mr. Kursdale evidently thought this very unprofessional, and +suggested the expediency of a clerk acting as Mrs. Tredethlyn’s +proxy; but Maude shook her head.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I will go myself,” she said. “If my husband is still in England, +I will find him. There can be no further misunderstanding +between us, if once we can meet face to face.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Mr. Kursdale submitted, and departed. Maude ran away to +superintend her maid’s packing of a small portmanteau, and +Susan sat in the morning-room with Julia. It had been settled +that Miss Desmond should drive her back to Petersham after +luncheon.</p> + +<p class='c008'>They were talking rather ceremoniously, when the door was +suddenly opened by an impetuous hand, and Miss Grunderson +burst in upon them, more intensely pink than usual.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“They wanted me to go to the drawing-room, and they’d go +and see if Mrs. Tredethlyn was at home!” exclaimed Rosa. “I +know what their going and seeing is. Not at home always, +and I do so want to see that poor darling; and I’m sure there’s +no one in the world more truly sorry for her than I am; and if +going into half-mourning would have been considered a tribute +of sincere respect, and not an intrusion or uncalled for, I would +have ordered a crape bonnet, trimmed with lilies of the valley +and jet beads, directly I heard of it.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Julia interrupted Miss Grunderson with a simple statement of +the fact which had put an end to Maude’s brief time of mourning. +Rosa’s delight was very genuine, and on being introduced +<span class='pageno' id='Page_336'>336</span>to Mrs. Lesley, she expanded as it was her wont to expand on +all occasions.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“You can’t think how glad I am!” she exclaimed; “for I +assure you when I heard of that <em>dreadful</em> event, I felt as if it +was quite hard-hearted of me to be happy, and I have been very +happy for the last week or so. In point of fact,” added Miss +Grunderson, dragging at the button of a very tight glove in +evident embarrassment, “I’m engaged to be married.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Indeed!” said Julia, politely.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Yes. You see as par has long objected to my running +after public characters, which of course was tiresome to him,—for +of all the people to tear about to all sorts of inaccessible +places, and oblige one’s getting up unreasonably early in the +morning to hear them or to see them, public characters are the +worst,—so par was really glad for me to be seriously engaged to +anybody that would keep me quiet, he said, even if the person +was not rich; so when Mr. Lowther—Mr. Roderick Lowther, +you know—proposed, par happening to be in a good temper, it +was all settled immediately.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I am very glad to hear it,” answered Miss Desmond; “but +I am not at all surprised. I quite expected as much.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Did you really, now? Well, upon my word, I thought at +first he was almost as grumpy as Rochester in ‘Jane Eyre;’ +but when those grumpy people do begin to pay one compliments, +it is so nice. Of course, with regard to Mario, Lord Palmerston, +Sir Edwin Landseer, and Charles Mathews, my feelings will be +unchanged to my dying day. But the worship of public characters +need not interfere with the happiness of domestic life; +and as Roderick’s position in the <span lang="fr"><i>corps diplomatique</i></span> will take +us abroad, his jealousy need never be aroused in the slightest +degree.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Miss Grunderson entertained the two ladies for some time +with minute details of her own affairs, and she confessed presently +that Roderick had promised to call for her.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“He doesn’t want to see Mrs. Tredethlyn, you know,” she +said; “he was only anxious to express to you how sorry he is, +and so on—though, of course, now he hasn’t any occasion to be +sorry, thank goodness!—but you don’t mind his coming to +fetch me, do you, dear? The carriage is waiting for me, and +I’m going to take him on to the Haymarket, where we’re to see +about the resetting of some old-fashioned diamond earrings +that Roderick’s ma has sent me. They’re not nearly as handsome +as my own, you know; but, of course, I feel grateful to +her for the attention. And I’m to go down to Lowther Hall to +stay before our marriage; and I’m to be introduced to a maiden +aunt of Roderick’s, from whom he has expectations, this very +<span class='pageno' id='Page_337'>337</span>afternoon—I mean I’m to be introduced to her this very afternoon,” +added Rosa.</p> + +<p class='c008'>While she was chattering the door was opened, and a servant +announced Mr. Lowther. He came out of the bright white +daylight on the staircase into the room which was kept cool +and shadowy by closed Venetian shutters. As he looked about +him, unaccustomed to the obscurity, he heard a faint shriek, +and a woman who had been sitting with her back to the window +started suddenly from her chair.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Robert!” she cried; “Robert, is it you?” And then she +sank down again, pale and breathless.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Robert!” exclaimed Miss Grunderson; “you must mistake +Mr. Lowther for some one else, Mrs. Lesley. His name is not +Robert.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Perhaps not,” Susan answered, sadly. “He kept his real +name a secret from the poor girl who was once proud to call +herself his wife; but whatever his name may be he is my +husband nevertheless, and Providence has brought about our +meeting to-day. Oh, don’t add a falsehood to the wrong you +have done me!” she cried, appealing to Roderick Lowther, who +stood pale and confounded, with the faces of the three women +all turned towards him, and with the knowledge that those +scrutinizing eyes were upon him. “I shall claim very little of +you. I only want you to give me the name I have a right to +bear; I only want you to acknowledge your son.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Roderick Lowther did not reply to this appeal. After a +moment’s pause he turned to Julia:</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Where do you pick up your acquaintance, Miss Desmond?” +he said. “I should scarcely have expected to meet this lady +here.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“This lady is my husband’s cousin,” answered Maude, who +had entered the room while he was speaking; “and I do not +know any one who has a better right to be here. What is the +matter, Susy darling?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Roderick Lowther’s heart was stirred faintly by the sound of +that familiar name—the name which he had whispered so often +beside a grey wintry sea, under a wintry sky, in the desolate +region which had been brightened for him by his discarded +wife’s innocence and love.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“There is nothing that can be spoken of here,” Susan +answered; “I have met some one whom I never expected to see +again. I will wait till my cousin comes back. I will say no +more till then.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“But, good gracious me!” exclaimed Miss Grunderson, “I’m +not going to be treated in this sort of way. What does it all +mean, Roderick? That lady starts up all of a sudden, and +<span class='pageno' id='Page_338'>338</span>calls you her husband, and then says she’ll wait till her cousin +comes home. I can’t be expected to wait till her cousin comes +home. I can’t take matters so coolly. With my trousseau +ordered, and all! I must and will have an explanation!”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“You shall, Rosa; but, for mercy’s sake, hold your tongue. +There is some infernal mistake. You had better go home; +never mind about the earrings to-day. If this lady mistakes +me for some one she knows, or has a claim upon, I have no +doubt I shall be able to demonstrate her mistake, if I can talk +to her for a few minutes quietly. And now let me take you to +your carriage, Rosa.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Miss Grunderson would have resisted such a summary way of +disposing of her and her wrongs; but Roderick Lowther was +firm. He led her down-stairs, and he put her into her carriage, +and he sent her home as coolly as if she had been a packet of +dry goods consigned to his temporary care, to be sent on to Mr. +Grunderson.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Awkward,” he muttered, as he went back to the house; +“but things always do happen awkwardly just when a fellow +fancies he’s swimming with the tide all in his favour.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>He looked very grave as he went to Mrs. Tredethlyn’s morning-room +to demand an interview with Susan; but he looked a +great deal more grave as he left the house after that interview +and made his way back to his brother’s lodgings.</p> + +<p class='c008'>He found Harcourt sitting moodily by the empty fireplace, +the slim foreign bottle on the table by his side, and a cigar in +his mouth.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“What is the matter with you?” asked the younger brother, +listlessly, as he perceived the scowl upon his senior’s face.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“There is this much the matter with me,” answered Roderick; +“I trusted a fellow to help me in a delicate business, and I’ve +reason to think that he took advantage of my confidence to get +me into a dilemma that it will take me all my life to get out of. +I have seen Susan Turner to-day.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Indeed!”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“And she has told me something about the Registrar—something +that I can scarcely bring myself to believe. Do you +remember what I asked you to do for me, Harcourt?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Perfectly. And I have got the letter containing your +request in my possession—such a nice letter! You tell me in +it that you have fallen over head and ears in love with an innocent +little country girl, too poor and insignificant to be your +wife, too virtuous to be your mistress. Another man might +have accepted his fate, and either resigned the lady, or made +some sacrifice of his own interests and married her. You were +inclined to do neither, and you fell back upon a villanous +<span class='pageno' id='Page_339'>339</span>expedient familiar to the readers of old-fashioned novels, and +known as a mock marriage. You wrote to me about this in a +half-playful tone, as if it were the simplest thing in the world—an +elegant little comedy, out of which it would be your care, +of course, to see that no harm should arise; and so on. The +carrying out of the little conspiracy would be very easy. You +suggested how it might be done. I had only to engage some +clever scapegrace to enact the Registrar; hire a parlour in some +obscure street <em>near</em> a District Registrar’s Office—in the same +street, if practicable; the ceremony would only occupy about +ten minutes, and could be got over as quietly as the most +commonplace morning call, if the fellow engaged to personate +the Registrar knew what he was about. The dear little girl +was the last person in the world to suspect anything amiss. +In short, it was the simplest possible business, and all our dear +good Harcourt had to do was to find the handy scamp who +would act the official, and get himself well up in the little professional +formula of signing and counter-signing, and so on, in +some big books that he would get for the purpose. The certificate +business would have to be finessed of course. The dear +little girl would ask for no certificate, and the dear little girl’s +witnesses must be conveniently shut up if they made their +noses unpleasantly prominent.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I begin to understand you,” said Roderick, with suppressed +fury. “You have sold me; and you are going to defend yourself +upon high grounds, conscientious scruples; and so on. +Pray proceed. That sort of talk will sound so well from your +lips.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I am not going to do anything of the kind. I am only +going to remind you that, as you never in your life did a +generous thing for me, or stepped aside from your own interest +or your own pleasure by so much as a hair’s breadth to serve +me, it wasn’t very likely that I should get myself into a legal +hobble—that mock marriage would have been something like +felony, I should imagine—and inflict a cruel wrong upon an +innocent little girl to oblige you. I didn’t want to be too disobliging, +so I arranged a marriage, but it was a real and not a +sham one; and you are as tightly tied to your pretty little wife +as if the business had been transacted at St. George’s, Hanover +Square, by a popular bishop, assisted by an aristocratic uncle +to the bride.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“You are a remorseless scoundrel!” exclaimed Mr. Lowther, +coolly. “And I am very happy to tell you that your own +pretty little plans are knocked on the head. Francis Tredethlyn +did not sail in the <i>Kingfisher</i>!”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Harcourt gave a little start of surprise; but his countenance +<span class='pageno' id='Page_340'>340</span>did not express the profound vexation and disappointment that +his brother had expected to see in it. The schemer had failed +so completely, that it mattered very little to him now what +course events took.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Yes, Francis Tredethlyn is alive and well, I have no doubt,” +resumed Roderick. “And my little Susy turns out to be +Francis Tredethlyn’s first cousin. I have a recollection of her +telling me, after our marriage, that her real name was something +outlandish, of a Cornish character; but the name had slipped +my memory completely before I met your wealthy Cornishman.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Then the likeness which I fancied I saw in that daub of a +portrait and the similarity of name were not mere coincidences, +after all,” muttered Harcourt. “And the lady at Petersham is +my little sister-in-law. It’s a pity you didn’t treat her rather +better,” he added; “for Francis Tredethlyn could afford to give +her a handsome fortune, if he pleased. It is from her father he +inherits his money; and if you had declared your marriage, and +made things square with the old man, your wife need not have +been disinherited, and would have been as rich a prize as any +Miss Grunderson.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Hold your tongue!” cried Roderick; “I know what I have +lost as well as you do. If you had been above-board with me, +and told me that you had sold me about the marriage, I might +have acted differently. Why did you get me into such a mess?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Because I didn’t choose to be your catspaw. I have been +sacrificed to your interests all my life, and I was determined to +keep my hold upon you when I had got it.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“And you would have allowed me to marry Rosa Grunderson?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“<span lang="fr"><i>C’est selon!</i></span> I <em>think</em> I should have spoken at the last moment—and +yet it might have been very convenient to hold an awkward +little secret about one’s wealthy brother. A man must be +very hard up before he descends to that undignified mode of +livelihood which the French galley-slaves call <span lang="fr"><i>chantage</i></span>; but +when a fellow <em>is</em> hard up there’s no knowing how low he may +descend.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“You are a scoundrel!”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“And you are—I can’t finish the sentence without sinking +to slang. We resemble each other in character as we do in +person.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>In this fashion the brothers bandied civilities for some time; +but they ended matters by dining together at the Metropolitan. +Arabian traditions as to the sanctity of bread and salt cannot +hold good against the exigencies of civilized life; and men may +dine together in a friendly way, and reserve the right of hating +each other nevertheless.</p> + +<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_341'>341</span>Warmed by a good dinner and a bottle of Moselle, Roderick +grew hopeful as to the future. Susan would relent from her +calm determination never to hold any communication with the +husband she had loved so tenderly, by whom she had been so +cruelly abandoned. Francis might act in a handsome manner +about the fortune which ought to have been his cousin’s; and, +after all, the turn which affairs had taken might not be altogether +an unlucky one.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Looking at it in any way, Rosa was a nuisance,” said Mr. +Lowther, as he bedewed his moustache with the rose-water +which the luxurious Metropolitan provides for its guests; “and +perhaps it’s better as it is. We hadn’t come to close quarters +about the settlements; and I dare say if the <span lang="fr"><i>père</i></span> Grunderson +had been brought to the scratch, we should have had a scuffle.”</p> + +</div> + +<div class='pbb'> + <hr class='pb c001'> +</div> +<div> + +<div> + <h2 class='c003'><a id='chapter-XLII'></a>CHAPTER XLII.<br> <br><span class='fss'>A PERFECT UNION.</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>Maude left Paddington by an afternoon express, and reached +Exeter after a journey that was long and wearisome even to a +modern traveller, for whom the way has been smoothed so delightfully. +It was late the next evening when she reached +Falmouth, after a day in a stage-coach, and put up at the +principal hotel with her maid, who was a good deal more tired +than her mistress, as it is in the nature of maids to be. The +coach that passed through Landresdale on its way to some still +more remote and savage district left Falmouth early in the +morning; and Maude left with it, this time unattended by her +maid, whose curiosity had been considerably stimulated by the +erratic nature of her mistress’s movements, and who thought it +a hard thing to be left alone to look out of the window of the +hotel sitting-room, while Mrs. Tredethlyn pursued her mysterious +journey to its mysterious close.</p> + +<p class='c008'>How strange and new all the wild Cornish scenery seemed to +Maude, as she sat alone in the interior of the coach, which was +not affected by the sturdy agriculturists and miners who were +generally the only passengers on this route! How many conflicting +hopes and fears found a place in her mind as she looked +out at the unknown country amidst which her husband’s boyhood +had been spent! Had he sailed for the New World by +some later vessel than the <i>Kingfisher</i>? Was he far away from +the rustic homestead towards which she was travelling with a +faint hope of finding him at the end of her journey?—an unreasoning +hope, which she tried to shut out of her mind in her +dread of the cruel disappointment that might await her.</p> + +<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_342'>342</span>The coach put her down before the Crown Inn, and she stood +alone in Landresdale High Street, with the great gates of the +marquis’s enchanted castle frowning down upon her from the +top of the hill. She inquired about a conveyance to take her +on to Tredethlyn Grange; and the landlord of the Crown +ordered the immediate preparation of a lumbering old equipage +of a tub-like character, lined with washed-out chintz, which was +brought forth on rare occasions, and charged for at a prodigious +rate. While the equipage was being prepared, the landlord contemplated +his bright young visitor with evident curiosity, and +would fain have beguiled her into conversation; but Maude had +no inclination to be communicative. If she was to receive a +death-blow to all her hopes, she did not want to take it from +the hands of this coarse common man. She wanted to go +straight to the Grange and learn her fate there, and there only. +The road from Landresdale to the moorland farmhouse was +longer than the by-path through the churchyard by which +Francis had gone; and the clumsy old brown horse, and the +lumbering vehicle in which Maude was seated, progressed very +slowly. The way seemed intolerably long to her; but at last +she saw a grey spot against the blue sky, and made out that +the vehicle was bearing towards it by a winding track along +which heavy waggons had left the impression of their broad +wheels. The grey spot grew bigger and bigger against the +horizon, until it grew at last into a dreary-looking habitation, +with quaint old gables and moss-grown stone walls. One +slender thread of smoke curled upward, white against the clear +blue atmosphere; some sheep were grazing upon the patch of +ground that had once been a garden; and the perfume of the +clover blew towards the traveller as the fly lumbered nearer to +the broken gate.</p> + +<p class='c008'>Maude looked hopelessly at the quiet house,—so little sign of +occupation, so little token of life.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“He can’t be there,” she thought; a sudden gush of tears +shutting out the grey stone walls, the clover-field and browsing +sheep. “I am too late!”</p> + +<p class='c008'>She brushed away her tears, drew down her veil, and alighted, +telling the driver to wait for her; whereupon the man took the +bit out of his horse’s mouth and abandoned himself to slumber, +while the animal cropped the stunted grass contentedly. Some +sheep that had been lying in the pathway skipped awkwardly +away as Maude crossed the bare enclosure; and as she approached +the door, it was opened by a tall gaunt woman, who +had evidently been disturbed by the unwonted sound of wheels +on the rough moorland road.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Mr. Tredethlyn has been staying here, has he not?” Maude +asked, eagerly.</p> + +<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_343'>343</span>“Yes, ma’am; and he’s here still. Excuse me for being a +little put out like, but you have taken me so aback. You don’t +happen to be my master’s wife, do you?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Yes, yes! Oh, thank Heaven, he is still here! Let me see +him at once, please!” exclaimed Maude, trying to pass the +grim-looking woman who barred her passage.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Not yet! Oh, please, ma’am, not yet!” cried the woman, +eagerly. “It mightn’t be safe.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Not safe! What do you mean?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“He has been so ill, ma’am; and the doctor’s special orders +was that he was to be kept from anything that might upset +him. And he talked and raved so about you, poor dear, when his +senses were quite gone, as they were for days together; and I’m +sure nothing could upset him so much as the sight of your +coming upon him sudden. Let me see him first, and tell him +you are here. I make no doubt he’ll be overjoyed to see you; +but it mustn’t come like a shock upon him.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“He has been ill!” cried Maude; “dangerously ill!”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Yes, ma’am; very dangerously. We had two doctors with +him at one time. Brain fever it was; over-fatigue and trouble +of the mind, and so on, the doctors said. He came up here +after being too late for the steamer by which he was to have +gone abroad; and he came to settle everything about the farm +and the quarries, and so on; and he worked at it night and day, +without rest nor sleep, though me and my husband told him how +bad it was for him; and everything was almost settled when he +woke one morning bad in his head, and after that got from bad +to worse, until his life was almost give up.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“But he is out of danger now?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Yes, ma’am, thank God, quite out of danger now; but, oh, +so weak; the smallest child that ever I had to do with wasn’t +weaker than my poor master now.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Maude burst out crying. Until this moment she had stood, +pale and breathless, waiting to hear that she was indeed too +late—that Francis Tredethlyn had escaped the destruction of +the <i>Kingfisher</i> only to find death waiting for him in his own +home.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Don’t mind me,” she exclaimed, as the gaunt woman made +a clumsy attempt to comfort her; “I am crying for joy. Go +and tell my husband that I am here; but not at any hazard to +him. I will be very patient. Thank God I have found him! +thank God I shall be able to fall on my knees by his bed-side +and beg his forgiveness for my neglect and ingratitude!”</p> + +<p class='c008'>Martha Dryscoll looked wonderingly at this butterfly creature, +who talked hysterically of falling at her husband’s feet and +begging forgiveness. Francis had made no confidants in that +<span class='pageno' id='Page_344'>344</span>Cornish house; and Mrs. Dryscoll began to fear that his marriage +had been a very unfortunate affair, and that this sudden +arrival of an elegantly dressed penitent was to be the last act of +a domestic tragedy.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“If you’ll walk in there, ma’am,” Martha said, pointing to +the parlour, with a severe aspect of countenance, “I’ll go and +see my master.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>She said no more, but departed; and Maude crept into the +old-fashioned room, fearful lest the rustling of her silk dress +might disturb an invalid’s slumber. It seemed a long time that +she waited, and then Mrs. Dryscoll returned, smiling grimly +this time.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“He’ll see you directly minute,” she said; “and, oh, he does +seem so pleased, poor dear!”</p> + +<p class='c008'>She led Maude to the top of the staircase, and then pointed +to a half-open door at the end of a dusky corridor, after which +she went down-stairs again, and Maude heard her sobbing +quietly to herself until the sound subsided in the distance.</p> + +<p class='c008'>The young wife went on to the half-open door, and entered +the room in which her husband lay on a white-curtained bed, +very pale, very wan, and so weak that he could not raise his +hand to offer it her in token of loving reconciliation.</p> + +<p class='c008'>She fell on her knees by the bed, and laid her cheek upon the +hand that was too feeble to be lifted.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Oh, forgive me!” she said; “my dear, my love, my true +and cherished husband! If you wanted to give me a lesson, you +have given me a very cruel one; but you have taught me that +I cannot live without you.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>She sat by his pillow, with his weak head encircled by her +caressing arms, and told him the story of her penitence and remorse. +It was a sweet exchange of forgiveness for the past, +and tender promises for the future. No denizens of Stuccoville +kept watch from behind pink curtains; the driver of the fly +slumbered as profoundly as one of the seven sleepers; the rustic +sound of the sheep cropping the clover was the only sound that +stirred the drowsy stillness. Martha kept herself discreetly out +of the way; and the husband and wife, truly united for the first +time in their lives in that Cornish solitude, were loath to break +the spell which held them in such loving union.</p> + +<p class='c008'>But such spells have to be broken for the common business of +life. Punctual to the appointed moment Mrs. Dryscoll appeared +with her master’s medicine; and then the lumbering fly was +sent back empty to Landresdale; and after that Mrs. Tredethlyn +was banished from the sick room, and made some faint show of +taking a little of the refreshment which had been provided for +her by Martha.</p> + +<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_345'>345</span>After dinner she wrote two brief notes—one to her maid at +Falmouth, who was to follow her immediately with the portmanteau; +the other to Julia, who was to be so good as to send +her such luggage as would be necessary to her in a stay of some +weeks.</p> + +<p class='c008'>After this Mrs. Tredethlyn had no more to do but to nurse her +husband through the slow stages of convalescence. It was very +long before he was strong enough to get up to a little Arcadian +tea-drinking. It was very long after that before he was able to +take a few turns in the clover-field, leaning on Maude’s arm. +It was still longer before he was well enough to think of turning +his back upon Cornwall, to plunge into busy commonplace +life again.</p> + +<p class='c008'>If he could have been an invalid for the rest of his days, he +would have resigned himself uncomplainingly to his fate; for +what period of his chequered existence had been so sweet as +this, in which he and Maude were all in all to each other?—this +perpetual <span lang="fr"><i>tête-à-tête</i></span>, unbroken by the intrusion of morning +callers, undisturbed by the conflicting emotions which attend +social intercourse in high latitudes. And they were not idle +either during these autumn months. Hidden among those wild +Cornish moors, the husband and wife were very busy together—<i>improving +their minds</i>; for Maude had confessed to her husband, +with a good deal of girlish giggling and blushing, that +her own education had been very nearly as defective as his, and +that the wide fields of knowledge, which were such strange and +bewildering regions to him, were scarcely more familiar to her.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“And you are so clever, Frank,” she exclaimed, in conclusion—she +always called him Frank now. “You remember what +those American phrenologists—Messrs. Somebody and Something—said +about your perceptive faculties? You could learn +anything, they said. And we’ll learn together, dear; for I’m +ashamed to say I’ve forgotten everything my governesses and +masters taught me, except French and music, and a smattering +of German and Italian. And I’m sure if you’d seen how, as +soon as one master had beaten anything into my brains, another +master came and beat it out again with something else, you’d +scarcely wonder that I’m ignorant. So we’ll begin together, +Frank dear, and learn everything. Won’t it be fun?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>A young lady who looked upon the acquisition of universal +knowledge as an agreeable joke would scarcely be expected to +drink very deeply of the Pierian spring. Maude imbibed the +classic water in little fitful sips, and wasted a good deal of it in +frolicsome splashing; but Francis had read considerably, even +in the midst of his London dissipation, and he had a happy +knack of remembering what he read. Mrs. Tredethlyn wrote +<span class='pageno' id='Page_346'>346</span>to a popular librarian for his catalogue; and in the pages of +this pamphlet she ticked off the solid works which she considered +adapted to the improvement of her own and her husband’s +mind.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Merivale’s ‘History of the Romans under the Empire!’” +she exclaimed; “<em>that</em> of course we must read. I’m sure I +haven’t the faintest idea of Julius Cæsar, except that he always +seemed to have a laurel-wreath on his head and a kind of +rolling-pin—if I remember right—in his hand, and that he once +passed something called the Rubicon, though <em>what</em> it was I +haven’t the slightest notion. We’ll have the ‘Roman Empire;’ +and when we’ve got through that, we’ll have Gibbon in <em>one</em> +volume, you know,” said Maude, triumphantly; “he’ll <em>seem</em> +shorter in one volume, even if the small print is rather trying +to one’s eyes. Newman’s ‘Phases of Faith’—that sounds like +theology, doesn’t it? and I don’t think we need begin theology +yet, because if we got into the early schisms of the Church, +and Gnostics, and Arians, and so on, our brains wouldn’t be +clear enough for Julius Cæsar. There’s a life of Madame de +Maintenon, by the Duc de Noailles; I think we’ll have that: +she’ll be quite a relief after the ‘Roman Empire,’ because one +<em>has</em> a kind of idea about her, and that she was a nasty old +frump, and said rude things about the king, who was so kind to +her, and so on.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>The selection of these and a great many more books was +eminently delightful; but when they came, Maude insisted on +dipping into “Roman Empires” and ponderous histories of different +ages just as if they had been so many novels; and she +frisked among the records of the Reign of Terror with a very +confused idea as to the difference between the “Mountain” and +the “Gironde,” but a vivid notion of Charlotte Corday having +her portrait painted just before her death, and Citizen Roland’s +beautiful wife declaiming on the scaffold.</p> + +<p class='c008'>They were very happy together. If Francis read in real +earnest, and his wife only played at reading, they were not the +less united in their studies. The industrious honey-bee and the +frivolous butterfly may hover about the same flower, happy +according to their different natures in the same summer noon. +Francis Tredethlyn and his wife were so happy in the quiet +old farmhouse that they let the autumn days drift by them in +their moorland retreat, even after the Cornishman had grown +strong enough for a new skirmish with Harcourt Lowther, had +there been any need of a physical contest between the two men.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“We have been so happy here, Francis,” Maude said one dim +November evening, as the husband and wife walked side by side +upon the moorland before the Grange; “but I think we have +<span class='pageno' id='Page_347'>347</span>learnt to understand each other so well now, that no one in the +world will be able to divide us again. And by-and-by, when +you have read a great deal about Julius Cæsar and political +economy, and so on, and go into the <span class='sc'>House</span>”—Maude opened +her eyes to the widest extent as she pronounced the high-sounding +substantive—“how proud I shall be of you; and I +shall go to the Ladies’ Gallery when you are going to speak! +And then, when you have settled all about the Berkshire estate, +how delightful it will be to arrange our model farm, and model +stables, and pineries, and vineries, and conservatories, and +orchid-houses, and a model dairy, and a model poultry-yard, +almost as pretty as the one at Frogmore! and then how much +we shall have to think of and talk about, shan’t we, Frank?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“And you’ll never be ashamed of me again, Maude?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Ashamed of you!” cried Mrs. Tredethlyn, innocently; +“was I ever ashamed of you?” And then she looked at her +husband archly, blushing and laughing. “Well, perhaps once, +when you knocked those <span lang="fr"><i>petits timbales de gibier</i></span> into the +duchess’s lap,—half-a-dozen of them at the very least, Frank; +and the night you tore Lady Ophelia Fitzormond’s old point: +but you are so refined, Frank, so improved, if I may venture to +say as much without offending you.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“I should be a churlish brute indeed, if I had not improved +in the society of the sweetest wife in Christendom, to say +nothing of Julius Cæsar. My great-grandfather was a gentleman, +Maude; and there are few names older than Tredethlyn, +even in this land of ancient lineages. We dropped down until +we came to be represented by my grandfather, who lived like +a peasant for the sake of hoarding his money, and in whose +steps my uncle Oliver followed. I shall try to make myself a +gentleman for your sake, Maude—it would never do for people +to say that the lovely Mrs. Tredethlyn had allied herself to a +man who was only a clod.”</p> + +<p class='c007'>After this, need it be said that all went very smoothly with +Mr. and Mrs. Tredethlyn?—so smoothly, that poor discontented +Julia abandoned the happy couple in disgust, and went abroad +as travelling companion to a rheumatic old countess, who leads +her a dreadful life, and insists upon being read to sleep out of +German metaphysical works at weird hours of the night. She +has met with Roderick Lowther in the course of her travels, lonely +and cynical, looking at everything in life through the medium +of his own disappointments; for he has sought in vain for a +reconciliation with his young wife, and has found to his cost +how very firmly a gentlewoman can hold to her resolution, when +her firmness is justified by the sense of a deep and deadly wrong.</p> + +<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_348'>348</span>They are very happy, Francis and Maude. The Berkshire +estate is just one of those exceptionally delightful places which +drop now and then into the hands of rich commoners when +the aristocratic proprietors go to the dogs; and the Stuccoville +mansion only sees its owners during the few months in which +they skim the cream of the London season, before scudding off +to the Continent to improve their minds among the monuments +of the past, or in the most fashionable watering-places +of the present. They are very happy. As time speeds on, +there appears on the lawn in Berkshire a little rolling bundle of +white muslin and expensive lace, which, inspected closely, turns +out to be a baby, and which, if it could speak at all, would +answer to the name of Lionel Hillary Tredethlyn; and by-and-by, +when the young couple travel in the bright autumn weather, +a prim English nurse and a French <span lang="fr"><i>bonne</i></span> follow in their rear, +and there is a little girl baby in a white hood; and papa and +mamma are alike concerned for the safe conveyance of these +domestic treasures. The girl baby is called Maude; but she +owns a string of other names; and her two godmothers are +Susan Lowther, who lives happily with her boy in the Petersham +cottage, and Rosa Grunderson, who declares that, in +consequence of the distracting influence of public characters, +and her fatal experience of the perfidy of private individuals +in the person of Roderick Lowther, she will descend a spinster +to the grave.</p> + +<p class='c008'>One day, at a German watering-place, Francis and his wife +hear of a man living in the same hotel with them, their countryman; +a man who is young, has been handsome, and who for the +last few months has been conspicuous in the gaming-saloons of +the Kursaal as a desperate, and sometimes a very lucky, player—a +traveller who can scarcely be an adventurer, for he has been +admired and caressed by elegant women and well-born men, but +who has been a hard drinker from first to last, and within the +last fortnight has fallen a victim to the most hideous disease +which vice ever engendered as the scorpion-whip to work its own +retribution,—a disease called delirium tremens.</p> + +<p class='c008'>The landlord of the hotel tells Mr. Tredethlyn how this +wretched Englishman has his bad fits and his intervals of quiet; +how he will lie down calmly enough perhaps at night, to start +up mad in the dim grey morning, to walk far out into the +country, hurrying wildly before the fiend that pursues him; +and to fall exhausted in some desolate spot, and lie there till +some passing peasant picks him up and conveys him back to +his lodging. The landlord describes, with considerable vivacity +and gesticulation, how this poor afflicted creature will sit for +hours together catching at imaginary insects that buzz about +<span class='pageno' id='Page_349'>349</span>him and torment him; how he will watch and point to falling +snow, that never falls; how with a power that is hideously +graphic, he will describe the devils that dance and gibber round +his miserable bed. He tells how the shutting of a door, the +rustling of a newspaper, the flutter of a falling leaf, will startle +this unhappy sufferer more than an unexpected peal of thunder +would startle another man. He describes the sleeplessness which +no opiate is strong enough to conquer, the restlessness and +depression with which medical science struggles in vain. He +tells Francis Tredethlyn, in confidence, that the poor ailing +wretch is all but penniless, and that very scanty supplies of +money come to him in reply to the letters he writes to England +now and then in his rational moments.</p> + +<p class='c008'>It scarcely needs Maude’s appealing look to inspire Francis +with the wish to help this unhappy countryman. He says nothing +to his wife, but he goes by-and-by to smoke his cigar in +the lamplit quadrangle, where there is a café, and a smoking-room, +and a reading-room, and a post-office, and a perpetual +chatter of divers tongues, and clatter of hurrying feet. He is +a long time smoking that cigar; and yet Maude feels no displeasure +in his absence, as she sits alone in her balcony looking +out at the lamplit town and the solemn forest looming darkly in +the distance. She knows that whatever impulse stirs her own +heart is almost sure to find an answering impulse in her husband’s; +and she can guess what keeps him so long to-night.</p> + +<p class='c008'>He has spoken to the landlord, he tells her, when he comes +back, and has given him a cheque which is to keep things +smooth for the present, and has promised more money, if more +should be needed; for in any case the Englishman is not to +be worried about money matters while he is ill; and above all +he is not to know that a stranger’s help has saved him from +annoyance.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“The landlord persuaded me to go into the—poor fellow’s +room, afterwards,” said Francis, slowly. “He thought it would +cheer him up a little to shake a countryman by the hand; and +I did go in, Maude,—and I saw him.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Yes, dear; and the interview has made you unhappy, I’m +sure. You are looking dreadfully pale!”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“The man is very ill, Maude, very ill. Yes, the sight of him +did almost knock me over, I assure you.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>It was a week after this when Mr. and Mrs. Tredethlyn left +the German watering-place. They were on the point of starting +from the hotel when Maude noticed the closed shutters of +some windows on an upper story, and on questioning one of the +waiters, was told that the Englishman was dead. She asked +her husband to tell her more about the painful end of this +<span class='pageno' id='Page_350'>350</span>lonely Englishman, as they sat alone in the <span lang="fr"><i>coupé</i></span> of a railway +carriage.</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Yes, he is dead, Maude,” Francis answered, sadly. “It +was a very melancholy fate. The doctors could not conquer +the sleeplessness, and he sank at last into a state of coma from +which he never rallied. It was a very miserable ending. He +will he buried in the little Protestant cemetery. I left all +necessary directions, and I have written to his friends in England. +Perhaps some one who cared for him will come over to +stand beside his grave. He was no friend of mine; but there +seems something very shocking in this solitary death in a +foreign country.”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“He was no friend of yours!” repeated Maude, wonderingly; +“how strangely you say that, Frank! You knew him, +then?”</p> + +<p class='c008'>“Yes, Maude, and you knew him too. The man who died +last night was Harcourt Lowther!”</p> + +<div class='nf-center-c0'> +<div class='nf-center c013'> + <div>THE END.</div> + </div> +</div> + +</div> + +<div class='pbb'> + <hr class='pb c001'> +</div> + +<div class='nf-center-c0'> +<div class='nf-center c002'> + <div><span class='xlarge'>MISS M. C. HAY’S NOVELS</span></div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class='nf-center-c0'> +<div class='nf-center c013'> + <div>UNIFORM EDITION. Price 2s.; cloth gilt, 2s. 6d.</div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class='nf-center-c0'> +<div class='nf-center c013'> + <div><span class='large'>NORA’S LOVE TEST</span></div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c008'><span class='small'>‘“Nora” is good.’—<cite>Athenæum.</cite></span></p> + +<p class='c008'><span class='small'>‘This book has, what is very rare in novels, a distinct interest as a story.’—<cite>Academy.</cite></span></p> + +<p class='c008'><span class='small'>‘Bright, fresh, and sparkling…. It is full of interest.’—<cite>Examiner.</cite></span></p> + +<div class='nf-center-c0'> + <div class='nf-center'> + <div>Also ready, by the same Author, Uniform Edition,</div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class='lg-container-b'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>OLD MYDDELTON’S MONEY.</div> + <div class='line'>HIDDEN PERILS.</div> + <div class='line'>VICTOR AND VANQUISHED.</div> + <div class='line'>THE ARUNDEL MOTTO.</div> + <div class='line'>THE SQUIRE’S LEGACY.</div> + <div class='line'>BRENDA YORKE. <span class="spacer"> </span>[<i>In the Press.</i></div> + <div class='line'>UNDER THE WILL.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class='nf-center-c0'> +<div class='nf-center c002'> + <div><span class='xlarge'>MR. W. G. WILLS’S NOVELS</span></div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class='nf-center-c0'> + <div class='nf-center'> + <div>Price 2s. each; cloth gilt, 2s. 6d.</div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class='lg-container-b'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>1. DAVID CHANTREY.</div> + <div class='line'>2. THE WIFE’S EVIDENCE.</div> + <div class='line'>3. NOTICE TO QUIT. <span class="spacer"> </span>[<i>In the Press.</i></div> + <div class='line'>4. THE THREE WATCHES.</div> + <div class='line'>5. LIFE’S FORESHADOWING.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class='nf-center-c0'> +<div class='nf-center c013'> + <div>Price 2s. Cloth gilt, 2s. 6d.</div> + </div> +</div> + +<table class='table1'> + <tr> + <td class='c005'>PUT TO THE TEST.</td> + <td class='c006'><span class='sc'>Edited by M. E. Braddon.</span></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c005'>ONLY A WOMAN.</td> + <td class='c006'>Do.</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c005'>ON HER MAJESTY’S SECRET SERVICE.</td> + <td class='c006'> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c005'>MISSES AND MATRIMONY.</td> + <td class='c006'><span class='sc'>By Lieut.-Col. Knollys.</span></td> + </tr> +</table> + +<div class='nf-center-c0'> +<div class='nf-center c013'> + <div>Price 1s., boards.</div> + </div> +</div> + +<table class='table1'> + <tr> + <td class='c005'>BUSH LIFE IN ZULULAND.</td> + <td class='c006'><span class='sc'>By Mrs. F. Aylmer.</span></td> + </tr> +</table> + +<div class='nf-center-c0'> +<div class='nf-center c013'> + <div>Illustrated. Price 2s. 6d. Paper boards. Cloth gilt, 3s. 6d.</div> + </div> +</div> + +<table class='table1'> + <tr> + <td class='c005'>TWICE ROUND THE CLOCK.</td> + <td class='c006'><span class='sc'>By G. A. Sala.</span></td> + </tr> +</table> + +<div class='nf-center-c0'> + <div class='nf-center'> + <div><span class='small'><i>N.B.—The Cloth Edition of this book makes a very handsome and useful Present.</i></span></div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class='nf-center-c0'> +<div class='nf-center c002'> + <div><span class='xlarge'>MR. W. S. HAYWARD’S NOVELS</span></div> + <div>CHEAP NEW EDITIONS.</div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class='nf-center-c0'> +<div class='nf-center c013'> + <div><i>Price 2s. each; cloth gilt, 2s. 6d.</i></div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c016'>HUNTED TO DEATH. A Novel of the most alluring interest.</p> +<p class='c016'>PERILS OF A PRETTY GIRL. A Novel founded upon real life.</p> + +<p class='c016'>LOVE AGAINST THE WORLD. A Novel showing that the “course of true love never did run smooth.”</p> + +<p class='c016'>ETHEL GREY. A Novel unsurpassed for dramatic power and depth of plot.</p> + +<p class='c016'>MAUDE LUTON. A Novel descriptive of the most charming traits in woman’s nature.</p> + +<p class='c016'>CAROLINE. A Novel of the most captivating character, full of variety, pathos, and feminine interest.</p> + +<p class='c016'>THE THREE RED MEN. A Novel possessing all the charms of romance and all the graces of a genuine love-story.</p> + +<p class='c016'>JOHN HAZEL’S VENGEANCE.</p> + +<p class='c016'>BARBARA HOME.</p> + +<p class='c008'>⁂ Mr. <span class='sc'>W. Stephens Hayward’s</span> Novels have taken their place amongst +the most popular works of the present day. They command a ready and +large sale in all the colonies, where the scenes of some are laid, and where the +author passed through many of the incidents so graphically and faithfully +described in some of his most interesting Novels.</p> + +<div class='nf-center-c0'> +<div class='nf-center c013'> + <div><span class='large'>MISS DORA RUSSELL’S NOVELS</span></div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class='nf-center-c0'> + <div class='nf-center'> + <div>Price 2s., Ornamental Cover; 2s. 6d. cloth gilt.</div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class='lg-container-b'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>1. FOOTPRINTS IN THE SNOW.</div> + <div class='line'>2. THE VICAR’S GOVERNESS.</div> + <div class='line'>3. BENEATH THE WAVE.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class='nf-center-c0'> +<div class='nf-center c013'> + <div><span class='large'>MRS. EDWARDS’ NOVEL</span></div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class='nf-center-c0'> + <div class='nf-center'> + <div>Price 2s., Ornamental Cover; 2s. 6d. cloth gilt.</div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class='nf-center-c0'> + <div class='nf-center'> + <div>THE MORALS OF MAY-FAIR.</div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class='nf-center-c0'> +<div class='nf-center c013'> + <div>LONDON: JOHN AND ROBERT MAXWELL</div> + <div><span class='sc'>Milton House, Shoe Lane, Fleet Street, E.C.</span></div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class='pbb'> + <hr class='pb c001'> +</div> +<div> + +<p class='c017'></p> + +</div> +<div class='transcribers-notes'> + +<div class='nf-center-c1'> + <div class='nf-center'> + <div><span class='xlarge'>Transcriber’s Notes</span></div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c018'>Itemized changes from the original text:</p> + <ul class='ul_1'> + <li><a href='#tn-iv'>Table of Contents</a>: Supplied missing period after chapter number IV. + </li> + <li><a href='#tn-deptford'>p. 10</a>: Changed “Deptfort” to “Deptford” in phrase “embarked at Deptford + on a misty morning in October.” + </li> + <li><a href='#tn-onlychild'>p. 16</a>: Changed exclamation mark after “child” to comma in phrase “his + only child, too, for the matter of that.” + </li> + <li><a href='#tn-writeatonce'>p. 16</a>: Supplied missing closing quotation mark after phrase “bring + out your desk, and write at once.” + </li> + <li><a href='#tn-esqeh'>p. 22</a>: Replaced double with single closing quotation mark in phrase “the + lawyer’s letter!—‘Francis Tredethlyn, Esq.!’ eh?” + </li> + <li><a href='#tn-farfromsusy'>p. 35</a>: Supplied missing closing quotation mark after phrase “I’m + every bit as far from Susy now as ever I was out yonder.” + </li> + <li><a href='#tn-hillary'>p. 51</a>: Changed “Hilary” to “Hillary” in phrase “Lionel Hillary, + Australian merchant, of Moorgate Street.” + </li> + <li><a href='#tn-mrtredethlyn'>p. 69</a>: Supplied missing period after “Mr.” in phrase “She sighed as + she admitted to Mr. Tredethlyn that her name was Burfield.” + </li> + <li><a href='#tn-relationsinthecountry'>p. 72</a>: Supplied missing closing quotation mark after + phrase “with her relations in the country.” + </li> + <li><a href='#tn-burfieldstory'>p. 80</a>: Supplied missing period after “Mrs.” in phrase “He had only + been able to read Mrs. Burfield’s story in one fashion.” + </li> + <li><a href='#tn-inquiriesas'>p. 111</a>: Omitted repeated word “as” in phrase “appeared to resent any + inquiries as to his state.” + </li> + <li><a href='#tn-gaieties'>p. 169</a>: Changed “gaities” to “gaieties” in phrase “amidst all the + gaieties and luxuries and successes of the most wonderful city in the world.” + </li> + <li><a href='#tn-donewithrob'>p. 188</a>: Replaced double with single closing quotation mark after + phrase “what have you done with Robert?” + </li> + <li><a href='#tn-clicquot'>p. 202</a>: Changed “Cliquot” to “Clicquot” in phrase “under the influence + of unlimited Moet or Clicquot.” + </li> + <li><a href='#tn-adjacenttheatre'>p. 214</a>: Supplied missing period after phrase “some one proposed + an adjournment to an adjacent theatre.” + </li> + <li><a href='#tn-missturners'>p. 224</a>: Supplied missing letter “s” in “Turner’s” in phrase “I’ll + slip over and get Miss Turner’s direction.” + </li> + <li><a href='#tn-bringmymind'>p. 227</a>: Supplied missing single closing quotation mark after phrase + “I don’t think I shall ever bring my mind to go there, or to see them.” + </li> + <li><a href='#tn-blandly'>p. 241</a>: Several words at the top of this page were missing from the + images used to produce this eBook. The words “said,” “set,” and “heiress” were confirmed + from the original 1864-65 serial publication. + </li> + <li><a href='#tn-burleigh'>p. 246</a>: Changed “Burlegh” to “Burleigh” in phrase “And long he mourned, + the Lord of Burleigh.” + </li> + <li><a href='#tn-looking'>p. 250</a>: Changed “looing” to “looking” in phrase “looking sharply at the + myosotis in her nephew’s button-hole.” + </li> + <li><a href='#tn-saidall'>p. 266</a>: Changed dash to period after phrase “exclaimed Mr. Harcourt, who + had said all he wanted to say.” + </li> + <li><a href='#tn-returned'>p. 268</a>: Changed “reurned” to “returned” in phrase “when the water-party + returned to the Cedars.” + </li> + <li><a href='#tn-verylife'>p. 271</a>: Omitted closing double quotation mark after phrase “willing to + lay down his very life for her pleasure.” + </li> + <li><a href='#tn-starvation'>p. 280</a>: Added semicolon after phrase “I have been face to face with + starvation, Frank, very often within the last two years.” + </li> + <li><a href='#tn-quietrubber'>p. 286</a>: Supplied missing period after “Mr.” in phrase “The quiet + rubber at Mr. Lowther’s lodgings generally led to other rubbers elsewhere.” + </li> + <li><a href='#tn-shakinghands'>p. 289</a>: Supplied missing period after phrase “while Francis was + shaking hands with some of the men.” + </li> + <li><a href='#tn-manmoustache'>p. 292</a>: Supplied missing letter “n” in “man” in phrase “a big man + with a black moustache.” + </li> + </ul> + +</div> + +<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 76927 ***</div> + </body> + <!-- created with ppgen.py 3.57e (with regex) on 2025-08-15 15:19:45 GMT --> +</html> + diff --git a/76927-h/images/cover.jpg b/76927-h/images/cover.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..50c4fdd --- /dev/null +++ b/76927-h/images/cover.jpg diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..49a14bf --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for eBook #76927 +(https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/76927) |
