Volume One—Chapter Six.A Ghastly Serenade.“Gentlemen,” said Colonel Lascelles, “I am an old fogey, and I never break my rules. At my time of life a man wants plenty of sleep, so I must ask you to excuse me. Rockley shall take my place, and I beg—I insist—that none will stir. Smith, send the Major’s servant to see if he is better.”A smart-looking dragoon, who had been acting the part of butler at the mess table, saluted.“Beg pardon, sir, James Bell is sick.”“Drunk, you mean, sir,” cried the Colonel angrily. “Confound the fellow! he is always tippling the mess wine.”“Small blame to him, Colonel,” said the Adjutant with tipsy gravity; “’tis very good.”“And disagreed with his master early in the evening,” said the Doctor.Here there was a roar of laughter, in which the greyheaded Colonel joined.“Well, gentlemen, we must not be hard,” he said. “Here, Smith, my compliments to Major Rockley, and if he is better, say we shall be glad to see him.”“Beg pardon, sir,” said the man, “here is the Major.”At that moment the gentleman in question entered the room, and the brilliant illumination of the table gave a far better opportunity for judging his appearance than the blind-drawn gloom of Lady Teigne’s drawing-room. He was a strikingly handsome dark man, with a fierce black moustache that seemed to divide his face in half, and then stood out beyond each cheek in a black tuft, hair highly pomatumed and curled, and bright black eyes that seemed to flash from beneath his rather overhanging brows. Five-and-thirty was about his age, and he looked it all, time or dissipation having drawn a good many fine lines, like tracings of future wrinkles, about the corners of his eyes and mouth.“Colonel—gentlemen, a hundred apologies,” he said. “I’m not often taken like this. We must have a fresh mess-man. Our cooking is execrable.”“And your digestion so weak,” said the Doctor, sipping his port.“There, there,” said the Colonel hastily. “I want to get to bed. Take my place, Rockley; keep them alive. Good-night, gentlemen; I know you’ll excuse me. Good-night.”The Colonel left his seat, faced round, stood very stiffly for a few moments, and then walked straight out of the room, while Major Rockley, who was still far from sober, took his place.A good many bottles of port had been consumed that night, for in those days it was an English gentleman’s duty to pay attention to his port, and after turning exceedingly poorly, and having to quit the table, the Major began by trying to make up for the past in a manner that would now be classed as loud.“Gentlemen, pray—pray, pass the decanters,” he cried. “Colonel Mellersh, that port is not to your liking. Smith, some more claret? Mr Linnell, ’pon honour, you know you must not pass the decanter without filling your glass. Really, gentlemen, I am afraid our guests are disappointed at the absence of Colonel Lascelles, and because a certain gentleman has not honoured us to-night. A toast, gentlemen: HRH.”“HRH” was chorused as every officer and guest rose at the dark, highly-polished mahogany table, liberally garnished with decanters, bottles, and fruit; and, with a good deal of demonstration, glasses were waved in the air, a quantity of rich port was spilled, and the fact was made very evident that several of the company had had more than would leave them bright and clear in the morning.The mess-room of the Light Dragoon Regiment was handsome and spacious; several trophies of arms and colours decorated the walls; that unusual military addition, a conservatory, opened out of one side; and in it, amongst the flowers, the music-stands of the excellent band that had been playing during dinner were still visible, though the bandsmen had departed when the cloth was drawn.The party consisted of five-and-twenty, many being in uniform, with their open blue jackets displaying their scarlet dress vests with the ridge of pill-sized buttons closely packed from chin to waist; and several of the wearers of these scarlet vests were from time to time pouring confidences into their neighbours’ ears, the themes being two: “The cards” and “She.”“Colonel Mellersh, I am going to ask you to sing,” said Major Rockley, after taking a glass of port at a draught, and looking a little less pale.He turned to a striking-looking personage at his right—a keen, aquiline-featured man, with closely-cut, iron-grey hair, decisive, largish mouth with very white teeth, and piercing dark-grey eyes which had rather a sinister look from the peculiarity of his fierce eyebrows, which seemed to go upwards from where they nearly joined.“I’m afraid my voice is in no singing trim,” said the Colonel, in a quick, loud manner.“Come, no excuses,” cried a big heavy-faced, youngish man from the bottom of the long table—a gentleman already introduced to the reader in Lady Teigne’s drawing-room.“No excuse, Sir Matt,” cried the Colonel; “only an apology for the quality of what I am about to sing.”There was a loud tapping and clinking of glasses, and then the Colonel trolled forth in a sweet tenor voice an anacreontic song about women, and sparkling wine, and eyes divine, and flowing bowls, and joyous souls, and ladies bright, as dark as night, and ladies rare, as bright as fair, and so on, and so on, the whole being listened to with the deepest attention and the greatest of satisfaction by a body of gentlemen whose thoughts at the moment, if not set upon women and wine, certainly were upon wine and women.It was curious to watch the effect of the song upon the occupants of the different chairs. The Major sat back slightly flushed, gazing straight before him at the bright face he conjured up; Sir Matthew Bray leaned forward, and bent and swayed his great handsome Roman-looking head and broad shoulders in solemn satisfaction, and his nearest neighbour, Sir Harry Payne, the handsome, effeminate and dissipated young dragoon, tapped the table with his delicate fingers and showed his white teeth. The stout Adjutant bent his chin down over his scarlet waistcoat and stared fiercely at the ruby scintillations in the decanter before him. The gentleman on his left, an insignificant-looking little civilian with thin, fair hair, screwed up his eyes and drew up his lips in what might have been a smile or a sneer, and stared at the gentleman on the Major’s left, holding himself a little sidewise so as to peer between one of the silver branches and the épergne.The young man at whom he stared was worth a second look, as he leaned forward with his elbows upon the table and his head on one side, his cheek leaning upon his clasped hands.He was fair with closely curling hair, broad forehead, dark eyes, and what was very unusual in those days, his face was innocent of the touch of a razor, his nut-brown beard curling closely and giving him rather a peculiar appearance among the scented and closely-shaven dandies around.As the song went on he kept his eyes fixed on Colonel Mellersh, but the words had no charm for him: he was thinking of the man who sang, and of the remarkable qualities of his voice, uttering a sigh of satisfaction and sinking back in his seat as the song ended and there was an abundance of applause.“Come,” cried Major Rockley, starting up again; “I have done so well this time, gentlemen, that I shall call upon my friend here, Mr Linnell, to give us the next song.”“Indeed, I would with pleasure,” said the young man, colouring slightly; “but Colonel Mellersh there will tell you I never sing.”“No; Linnell never sings, but he’s a regular Orpheus with his lute or pipe—I mean the fiddle and the flute.”“Then perhaps he will charm us, and fancy he has come into the infernal regions for the nonce; only, ’fore gad, gentlemen, I am not the Pluto who has carried off his Eurydice.”“Really, this is so unexpected,” said the young man, “and I have no instrument.”“Oh, some of your bandsmen have stringed instruments, Rockley.”“Yes, yes, of course,” cried the Major. “What is it to be, Mr Linnell? We can give you anything. Why not get up a quintette, and let Matt Bray there take the drum, and charming Sir Harry Payne the cymbals?”“Play something, Dick,” said Colonel Mellersh quietly.“Yes, of course,” said the young man. “Will you help me?”“Oh, if you like,” said the Colonel. “Rockley, ask your men to lend us a couple of instruments.”“Really, my dear fellow, we haven’t a lute in the regiment.”“I suppose not,” said the Colonel dryly. “A couple of violins will do. Here, my man, ask for a violin and viola.”The military servant saluted and went out, and to fill up the time Major Rockley proposed a toast.“With bumpers, gentlemen. A toast that every man will drink. Are you ready?”There was a jingle of glasses, the gurgle of wine, and then a scattered volley of “Yes!”“Her bright eyes!” said the Major, closing his own and kissing his hand.“Her bright eyes!” cried everyone but the Adjutant, who growled out a malediction on somebody’s eyes.Then the toast was drunk with three times three, there was the usual clattering of glasses as the gentlemen resumed their seats, and some of those who had paid most attention to the port began with tears in their eyes to expatiate on the charms of some special reigning beauty, receiving confidences of a like nature. Just then, the two instruments were brought and handed to the Colonel and Richard Linnell, a sneering titter going round the table, and a whisper about “fiddlers” making the latter flush angrily.“Yes, gentlemen, fiddlers,” said Colonel Mellersh quietly; “and it requires no little skill to play so grand and old an instrument. I’ll take my note from you, Dick.”Flushing more deeply with annoyance, Richard Linnell drew his bow across the A string, bringing forth a sweet pure note that thrilled through the room, and made one of the glasses ring.“That’s right,” said the Colonel. “I wish your father were here. What’s it to be?”“What you like,” said Linnell, whose eyes were wandering about the table, as if in search of the man who would dare to laugh and call him “fiddler” again.“Something simple that we know.”Linnell nodded.“Ready, gentlemen,” said the Major, with a sneering look at Sir Harry Payne. “Silence, please, ye demons of the nether world. ‘Hark, the lute!’ No: that’s the wrong quotation. Now, Colonel—Mr Linnell, we are all attention.”Richard Linnell felt as if he would have liked to box the Major’s ears with the back of the violin he held; but, mastering his annoyance, he stood up, raised it to his shoulder, and drew the bow across the strings, playing in the most perfect time, and with the greatest expression, the first bars of a sweet old duet, the soft mellow viola taking up the seconds; and then, as the players forgot all present in the sweet harmony they were producing, the notes came pouring forth in trills, or sustained delicious, long-drawn passages from two fine instruments, handled by a couple of masters of their art.As they played on sneers were changed for rapturous admiration, and at last, as the final notes rang through the room in a tremendous vibrating chord that it seemed could never have been produced by those few tightly-drawn strings, there was a furious burst of applause, glasses were broken, decanters hammered the table, and four men who had sunk beneath, suffering from too many bottles, roused up for the moment to shout ere they sank asleep again, while the Major excitedly stretched out his hand first to one and then to the other of the performers.“Gentlemen,” he cried at last, hammering the table to obtain order, “I am going to ask a favour of our talented guests. This has come upon me like a revelation. Such music is too good for men.”“Hear! hear! hear! hear!” came in chorus.“It is fit only for the ears of those we love.”“Hear!—hear!—hear!—hear!”“We have drunk their health, to-night; each the health of the woman of his heart.”“Hear!—hear!—hear!—hear!”“And now, as we have such music, I am going to beg our guests to come with us and serenade a lady whose name I will not mention.”“Hear!—hear!—hurrah!”“It is the lady I am proud to toast, and I ask the favour of you, Colonel Mellersh, of you, Mr Linnell, to come and play that air once through beneath her window.”“Oh, nonsense, Rockley. My dear fellow, no,” cried the Colonel.“My dear Mellersh,” said the Major with half-tipsy gravity. “My dear friend; and you, my dear friend Linnell, I pray you hear me. It may mean much more than you can tell—the happiness of my life. Come, my dear fellow, you’ll not refuse.”“What do you say, Linnell?” cried the Colonel good-humouredly.“Oh, it is so absurd,” said Linnell warmly.“No, no, not absurd,” said the Major sternly. “I beg you’ll not refuse.”“Humour him, Dick,” said the Colonel in a whisper.“You are telling him not to play,” said the Major fiercely.“My dear fellow, no: I was asking him to consent. Humour him, Dick,” said the Colonel. “It’s nearly two, and there’ll be no one about. If we refuse it may mean a quarrel.”“I’ll go if you wish it,” said Richard Linnell quietly.“All right, Major; we’ll serenade your lady in good old Spanish style,” said the Colonel laughingly. “Quick, then, at once. How far is it?”“Not far,” cried the Major. “Who will come? Bray, Payne, and half a dozen more. Will you be one, Burnett?”“No, not I,” said the little, fair man with the sneering smile; “I shall stay;” and he gave effect to his words by sinking back in his chair and then gliding softly beneath the table.“Just as you like,” said the Major, and the result was that a party of about a dozen sallied out of the barrack mess-room, crossed the yard, and were allowed to pass by the sentry on duty, carbine on arm.It was a glorious night, and as they passed out into the fresh, pure air and came in sight of the golden-spangled sea, which broke amongst the shingle with a low, dull roar, the blood began to course more quickly through Linnell’s veins, the folly of the adventure was forgotten, and a secret wish that he and the Colonel were alone and about to play some sweet love ditty, beneath a certain window, crossed his brain.For there was something in the time there, beneath the stars that were glitteringly reflected in the sea! Did she love him? Would she ever love him? he thought, and he walked on in a sweet dream of those waking moments, forgetful of the Major, and hearing nothing of the conversation of his companions, knowing nothing but the fact that he was a man of seven and twenty, whose thoughts went hourly forth to dwell upon one on whom they had long been fixed, although no words had passed, and he had told himself too often that he dare not hope.“Who is the Major’s Gloriana, Dick?” asked the Colonel suddenly. “By Jove, I think we had better tune up a jig. It would be far more suited to the woman he would choose than one of our young composer’s lovely strains.”“I don’t know. He’s going towards our place. Can it be Cora Dean?”“Hang him, no,” said the Colonel pettishly. “Perhaps so, though. I hope not, or we shall have your father calling us idiots—deservedly so—for our pains. Wrong, Dick; the old man will sleep in peace. Will it be Drelincourt?”“Madame Pontardent, perhaps.”“No, no, no, my lad; he’s going straight along. How lovely the sea looks!”“And how refreshing it is after that hot, noisy room.”“Insufferable. What fools men are to sit and drink when they might play whist!”“And win money,” said Linnell drily.“To be sure, my lad. Oh, you’ll come to it in time. Where the dickens is he going? Who can the lady be?”The Major evidently knew, for he was walking smartly ahead, in earnest converse with half a dozen more. Then came the Colonel and his companion, and three more of the party brought up the rear.The Major’s course was still by the row of houses that faced the sea, now almost without a light visible, and Richard Linnell was dreamily watching the waves that looked like liquid gold as they rose, curved over and broke upon the shingle, when all the blood seemed to rush at once to his heart, and then ebb away, leaving him choking and paralysed, for the Colonel suddenly said aloud:“Claire Denville!”And he saw that their host of the night had stopped before the house of the Master of the Ceremonies.The blood began to flow again, this time with a big wave of passionate rage in Richard Linnell’s breast. He was furious. How dared that handsome libertine profane Claire Denville by even thinking of her? How dared he bring him there, to play beneath the window—the window he had so often watched, and looked upon as a sacred temple—the resting-place of her he loved.He was ready to seize the Major by the throat; to fight for her; to say anything; to dash down the instrument in his rage; to turn and flee; but the next moment the cool, calm voice of the Colonel brought him to his senses, and he recalled that this was his secret—his alone—this secret of his love.“I did not know the Major was warm there. Well, she’s a handsome girl, and he’s welcome, I dare say.”Linnell felt ready to choke again, but he could not speak. He must get out of this engagement, though, at any cost.As he was musing, though, he found himself drawn as it were to where the Major and his friends were standing in front of the silent house, and the Colonel said:“Come, my lad, let’s run through the piece, and get home to bed. I’m too old for such tom-fool tricks as these.”“I will not play! It is an insult! It is madness!” thought Richard Linnell; and then, as if in a dream, he found himself the centre of a group, fuming at what he was doing, while, as if in spite of his rage, he was drawing the sweet echoing strains from the violin, listening to the harmonies added by his friend, and all in a nightmare-like fashion, playing involuntarily on, and gazing at the windows he had so often watched.On, on, on, the notes poured forth, throbbing on the night air, sounding pensive, sweet and love-inspiring, maddening too, as he tried to check his thoughts, and played with more inspiration all the while till the last bar, with its diminuendo, was reached, and he stood there, palpitating, asking himself why he had done this thing, and waiting trembling in his jealous rage, lest any notice should be taken of the compliment thus paid.Did Claire Denville encourage the Major—that libertine whose amours were one of the scandals of the place? Oh, it was impossible. She would not have heard the music. If she had she would have thought it from some wanderers, for she had never heard him play. She would not notice it. She would not heed it. In her virgin youth and innocency it was a profanation to imagine that Claire Denville—sweet, pure Claire Denville—the woman he worshipped, could notice such an attention. No, it was impossible she would; and his eyes almost started as he gazed at the white-curtained windows, looking so solemn and so strange.No, no, no; she would not notice, even if she had heard, and a strange feeling of elation came into the jealous breast.“Come,” he said hoarsely, “let us go.”“One moment, lad. Ah, yes,” said the Colonel. “Gloriana has heard the serenade, and is about to respond to her lover’s musically amatory call. Look, Dick, look.”Richard Linnell’s heart sank, for a white arm drew back the curtain, and then the catch of the window fastening was pressed back, and a chord in the young man’s breast seemed to snap; but it was only the spring of the window hasp.Click!
“Gentlemen,” said Colonel Lascelles, “I am an old fogey, and I never break my rules. At my time of life a man wants plenty of sleep, so I must ask you to excuse me. Rockley shall take my place, and I beg—I insist—that none will stir. Smith, send the Major’s servant to see if he is better.”
A smart-looking dragoon, who had been acting the part of butler at the mess table, saluted.
“Beg pardon, sir, James Bell is sick.”
“Drunk, you mean, sir,” cried the Colonel angrily. “Confound the fellow! he is always tippling the mess wine.”
“Small blame to him, Colonel,” said the Adjutant with tipsy gravity; “’tis very good.”
“And disagreed with his master early in the evening,” said the Doctor.
Here there was a roar of laughter, in which the greyheaded Colonel joined.
“Well, gentlemen, we must not be hard,” he said. “Here, Smith, my compliments to Major Rockley, and if he is better, say we shall be glad to see him.”
“Beg pardon, sir,” said the man, “here is the Major.”
At that moment the gentleman in question entered the room, and the brilliant illumination of the table gave a far better opportunity for judging his appearance than the blind-drawn gloom of Lady Teigne’s drawing-room. He was a strikingly handsome dark man, with a fierce black moustache that seemed to divide his face in half, and then stood out beyond each cheek in a black tuft, hair highly pomatumed and curled, and bright black eyes that seemed to flash from beneath his rather overhanging brows. Five-and-thirty was about his age, and he looked it all, time or dissipation having drawn a good many fine lines, like tracings of future wrinkles, about the corners of his eyes and mouth.
“Colonel—gentlemen, a hundred apologies,” he said. “I’m not often taken like this. We must have a fresh mess-man. Our cooking is execrable.”
“And your digestion so weak,” said the Doctor, sipping his port.
“There, there,” said the Colonel hastily. “I want to get to bed. Take my place, Rockley; keep them alive. Good-night, gentlemen; I know you’ll excuse me. Good-night.”
The Colonel left his seat, faced round, stood very stiffly for a few moments, and then walked straight out of the room, while Major Rockley, who was still far from sober, took his place.
A good many bottles of port had been consumed that night, for in those days it was an English gentleman’s duty to pay attention to his port, and after turning exceedingly poorly, and having to quit the table, the Major began by trying to make up for the past in a manner that would now be classed as loud.
“Gentlemen, pray—pray, pass the decanters,” he cried. “Colonel Mellersh, that port is not to your liking. Smith, some more claret? Mr Linnell, ’pon honour, you know you must not pass the decanter without filling your glass. Really, gentlemen, I am afraid our guests are disappointed at the absence of Colonel Lascelles, and because a certain gentleman has not honoured us to-night. A toast, gentlemen: HRH.”
“HRH” was chorused as every officer and guest rose at the dark, highly-polished mahogany table, liberally garnished with decanters, bottles, and fruit; and, with a good deal of demonstration, glasses were waved in the air, a quantity of rich port was spilled, and the fact was made very evident that several of the company had had more than would leave them bright and clear in the morning.
The mess-room of the Light Dragoon Regiment was handsome and spacious; several trophies of arms and colours decorated the walls; that unusual military addition, a conservatory, opened out of one side; and in it, amongst the flowers, the music-stands of the excellent band that had been playing during dinner were still visible, though the bandsmen had departed when the cloth was drawn.
The party consisted of five-and-twenty, many being in uniform, with their open blue jackets displaying their scarlet dress vests with the ridge of pill-sized buttons closely packed from chin to waist; and several of the wearers of these scarlet vests were from time to time pouring confidences into their neighbours’ ears, the themes being two: “The cards” and “She.”
“Colonel Mellersh, I am going to ask you to sing,” said Major Rockley, after taking a glass of port at a draught, and looking a little less pale.
He turned to a striking-looking personage at his right—a keen, aquiline-featured man, with closely-cut, iron-grey hair, decisive, largish mouth with very white teeth, and piercing dark-grey eyes which had rather a sinister look from the peculiarity of his fierce eyebrows, which seemed to go upwards from where they nearly joined.
“I’m afraid my voice is in no singing trim,” said the Colonel, in a quick, loud manner.
“Come, no excuses,” cried a big heavy-faced, youngish man from the bottom of the long table—a gentleman already introduced to the reader in Lady Teigne’s drawing-room.
“No excuse, Sir Matt,” cried the Colonel; “only an apology for the quality of what I am about to sing.”
There was a loud tapping and clinking of glasses, and then the Colonel trolled forth in a sweet tenor voice an anacreontic song about women, and sparkling wine, and eyes divine, and flowing bowls, and joyous souls, and ladies bright, as dark as night, and ladies rare, as bright as fair, and so on, and so on, the whole being listened to with the deepest attention and the greatest of satisfaction by a body of gentlemen whose thoughts at the moment, if not set upon women and wine, certainly were upon wine and women.
It was curious to watch the effect of the song upon the occupants of the different chairs. The Major sat back slightly flushed, gazing straight before him at the bright face he conjured up; Sir Matthew Bray leaned forward, and bent and swayed his great handsome Roman-looking head and broad shoulders in solemn satisfaction, and his nearest neighbour, Sir Harry Payne, the handsome, effeminate and dissipated young dragoon, tapped the table with his delicate fingers and showed his white teeth. The stout Adjutant bent his chin down over his scarlet waistcoat and stared fiercely at the ruby scintillations in the decanter before him. The gentleman on his left, an insignificant-looking little civilian with thin, fair hair, screwed up his eyes and drew up his lips in what might have been a smile or a sneer, and stared at the gentleman on the Major’s left, holding himself a little sidewise so as to peer between one of the silver branches and the épergne.
The young man at whom he stared was worth a second look, as he leaned forward with his elbows upon the table and his head on one side, his cheek leaning upon his clasped hands.
He was fair with closely curling hair, broad forehead, dark eyes, and what was very unusual in those days, his face was innocent of the touch of a razor, his nut-brown beard curling closely and giving him rather a peculiar appearance among the scented and closely-shaven dandies around.
As the song went on he kept his eyes fixed on Colonel Mellersh, but the words had no charm for him: he was thinking of the man who sang, and of the remarkable qualities of his voice, uttering a sigh of satisfaction and sinking back in his seat as the song ended and there was an abundance of applause.
“Come,” cried Major Rockley, starting up again; “I have done so well this time, gentlemen, that I shall call upon my friend here, Mr Linnell, to give us the next song.”
“Indeed, I would with pleasure,” said the young man, colouring slightly; “but Colonel Mellersh there will tell you I never sing.”
“No; Linnell never sings, but he’s a regular Orpheus with his lute or pipe—I mean the fiddle and the flute.”
“Then perhaps he will charm us, and fancy he has come into the infernal regions for the nonce; only, ’fore gad, gentlemen, I am not the Pluto who has carried off his Eurydice.”
“Really, this is so unexpected,” said the young man, “and I have no instrument.”
“Oh, some of your bandsmen have stringed instruments, Rockley.”
“Yes, yes, of course,” cried the Major. “What is it to be, Mr Linnell? We can give you anything. Why not get up a quintette, and let Matt Bray there take the drum, and charming Sir Harry Payne the cymbals?”
“Play something, Dick,” said Colonel Mellersh quietly.
“Yes, of course,” said the young man. “Will you help me?”
“Oh, if you like,” said the Colonel. “Rockley, ask your men to lend us a couple of instruments.”
“Really, my dear fellow, we haven’t a lute in the regiment.”
“I suppose not,” said the Colonel dryly. “A couple of violins will do. Here, my man, ask for a violin and viola.”
The military servant saluted and went out, and to fill up the time Major Rockley proposed a toast.
“With bumpers, gentlemen. A toast that every man will drink. Are you ready?”
There was a jingle of glasses, the gurgle of wine, and then a scattered volley of “Yes!”
“Her bright eyes!” said the Major, closing his own and kissing his hand.
“Her bright eyes!” cried everyone but the Adjutant, who growled out a malediction on somebody’s eyes.
Then the toast was drunk with three times three, there was the usual clattering of glasses as the gentlemen resumed their seats, and some of those who had paid most attention to the port began with tears in their eyes to expatiate on the charms of some special reigning beauty, receiving confidences of a like nature. Just then, the two instruments were brought and handed to the Colonel and Richard Linnell, a sneering titter going round the table, and a whisper about “fiddlers” making the latter flush angrily.
“Yes, gentlemen, fiddlers,” said Colonel Mellersh quietly; “and it requires no little skill to play so grand and old an instrument. I’ll take my note from you, Dick.”
Flushing more deeply with annoyance, Richard Linnell drew his bow across the A string, bringing forth a sweet pure note that thrilled through the room, and made one of the glasses ring.
“That’s right,” said the Colonel. “I wish your father were here. What’s it to be?”
“What you like,” said Linnell, whose eyes were wandering about the table, as if in search of the man who would dare to laugh and call him “fiddler” again.
“Something simple that we know.”
Linnell nodded.
“Ready, gentlemen,” said the Major, with a sneering look at Sir Harry Payne. “Silence, please, ye demons of the nether world. ‘Hark, the lute!’ No: that’s the wrong quotation. Now, Colonel—Mr Linnell, we are all attention.”
Richard Linnell felt as if he would have liked to box the Major’s ears with the back of the violin he held; but, mastering his annoyance, he stood up, raised it to his shoulder, and drew the bow across the strings, playing in the most perfect time, and with the greatest expression, the first bars of a sweet old duet, the soft mellow viola taking up the seconds; and then, as the players forgot all present in the sweet harmony they were producing, the notes came pouring forth in trills, or sustained delicious, long-drawn passages from two fine instruments, handled by a couple of masters of their art.
As they played on sneers were changed for rapturous admiration, and at last, as the final notes rang through the room in a tremendous vibrating chord that it seemed could never have been produced by those few tightly-drawn strings, there was a furious burst of applause, glasses were broken, decanters hammered the table, and four men who had sunk beneath, suffering from too many bottles, roused up for the moment to shout ere they sank asleep again, while the Major excitedly stretched out his hand first to one and then to the other of the performers.
“Gentlemen,” he cried at last, hammering the table to obtain order, “I am going to ask a favour of our talented guests. This has come upon me like a revelation. Such music is too good for men.”
“Hear! hear! hear! hear!” came in chorus.
“It is fit only for the ears of those we love.”
“Hear!—hear!—hear!—hear!”
“We have drunk their health, to-night; each the health of the woman of his heart.”
“Hear!—hear!—hear!—hear!”
“And now, as we have such music, I am going to beg our guests to come with us and serenade a lady whose name I will not mention.”
“Hear!—hear!—hurrah!”
“It is the lady I am proud to toast, and I ask the favour of you, Colonel Mellersh, of you, Mr Linnell, to come and play that air once through beneath her window.”
“Oh, nonsense, Rockley. My dear fellow, no,” cried the Colonel.
“My dear Mellersh,” said the Major with half-tipsy gravity. “My dear friend; and you, my dear friend Linnell, I pray you hear me. It may mean much more than you can tell—the happiness of my life. Come, my dear fellow, you’ll not refuse.”
“What do you say, Linnell?” cried the Colonel good-humouredly.
“Oh, it is so absurd,” said Linnell warmly.
“No, no, not absurd,” said the Major sternly. “I beg you’ll not refuse.”
“Humour him, Dick,” said the Colonel in a whisper.
“You are telling him not to play,” said the Major fiercely.
“My dear fellow, no: I was asking him to consent. Humour him, Dick,” said the Colonel. “It’s nearly two, and there’ll be no one about. If we refuse it may mean a quarrel.”
“I’ll go if you wish it,” said Richard Linnell quietly.
“All right, Major; we’ll serenade your lady in good old Spanish style,” said the Colonel laughingly. “Quick, then, at once. How far is it?”
“Not far,” cried the Major. “Who will come? Bray, Payne, and half a dozen more. Will you be one, Burnett?”
“No, not I,” said the little, fair man with the sneering smile; “I shall stay;” and he gave effect to his words by sinking back in his chair and then gliding softly beneath the table.
“Just as you like,” said the Major, and the result was that a party of about a dozen sallied out of the barrack mess-room, crossed the yard, and were allowed to pass by the sentry on duty, carbine on arm.
It was a glorious night, and as they passed out into the fresh, pure air and came in sight of the golden-spangled sea, which broke amongst the shingle with a low, dull roar, the blood began to course more quickly through Linnell’s veins, the folly of the adventure was forgotten, and a secret wish that he and the Colonel were alone and about to play some sweet love ditty, beneath a certain window, crossed his brain.
For there was something in the time there, beneath the stars that were glitteringly reflected in the sea! Did she love him? Would she ever love him? he thought, and he walked on in a sweet dream of those waking moments, forgetful of the Major, and hearing nothing of the conversation of his companions, knowing nothing but the fact that he was a man of seven and twenty, whose thoughts went hourly forth to dwell upon one on whom they had long been fixed, although no words had passed, and he had told himself too often that he dare not hope.
“Who is the Major’s Gloriana, Dick?” asked the Colonel suddenly. “By Jove, I think we had better tune up a jig. It would be far more suited to the woman he would choose than one of our young composer’s lovely strains.”
“I don’t know. He’s going towards our place. Can it be Cora Dean?”
“Hang him, no,” said the Colonel pettishly. “Perhaps so, though. I hope not, or we shall have your father calling us idiots—deservedly so—for our pains. Wrong, Dick; the old man will sleep in peace. Will it be Drelincourt?”
“Madame Pontardent, perhaps.”
“No, no, no, my lad; he’s going straight along. How lovely the sea looks!”
“And how refreshing it is after that hot, noisy room.”
“Insufferable. What fools men are to sit and drink when they might play whist!”
“And win money,” said Linnell drily.
“To be sure, my lad. Oh, you’ll come to it in time. Where the dickens is he going? Who can the lady be?”
The Major evidently knew, for he was walking smartly ahead, in earnest converse with half a dozen more. Then came the Colonel and his companion, and three more of the party brought up the rear.
The Major’s course was still by the row of houses that faced the sea, now almost without a light visible, and Richard Linnell was dreamily watching the waves that looked like liquid gold as they rose, curved over and broke upon the shingle, when all the blood seemed to rush at once to his heart, and then ebb away, leaving him choking and paralysed, for the Colonel suddenly said aloud:
“Claire Denville!”
And he saw that their host of the night had stopped before the house of the Master of the Ceremonies.
The blood began to flow again, this time with a big wave of passionate rage in Richard Linnell’s breast. He was furious. How dared that handsome libertine profane Claire Denville by even thinking of her? How dared he bring him there, to play beneath the window—the window he had so often watched, and looked upon as a sacred temple—the resting-place of her he loved.
He was ready to seize the Major by the throat; to fight for her; to say anything; to dash down the instrument in his rage; to turn and flee; but the next moment the cool, calm voice of the Colonel brought him to his senses, and he recalled that this was his secret—his alone—this secret of his love.
“I did not know the Major was warm there. Well, she’s a handsome girl, and he’s welcome, I dare say.”
Linnell felt ready to choke again, but he could not speak. He must get out of this engagement, though, at any cost.
As he was musing, though, he found himself drawn as it were to where the Major and his friends were standing in front of the silent house, and the Colonel said:
“Come, my lad, let’s run through the piece, and get home to bed. I’m too old for such tom-fool tricks as these.”
“I will not play! It is an insult! It is madness!” thought Richard Linnell; and then, as if in a dream, he found himself the centre of a group, fuming at what he was doing, while, as if in spite of his rage, he was drawing the sweet echoing strains from the violin, listening to the harmonies added by his friend, and all in a nightmare-like fashion, playing involuntarily on, and gazing at the windows he had so often watched.
On, on, on, the notes poured forth, throbbing on the night air, sounding pensive, sweet and love-inspiring, maddening too, as he tried to check his thoughts, and played with more inspiration all the while till the last bar, with its diminuendo, was reached, and he stood there, palpitating, asking himself why he had done this thing, and waiting trembling in his jealous rage, lest any notice should be taken of the compliment thus paid.
Did Claire Denville encourage the Major—that libertine whose amours were one of the scandals of the place? Oh, it was impossible. She would not have heard the music. If she had she would have thought it from some wanderers, for she had never heard him play. She would not notice it. She would not heed it. In her virgin youth and innocency it was a profanation to imagine that Claire Denville—sweet, pure Claire Denville—the woman he worshipped, could notice such an attention. No, it was impossible she would; and his eyes almost started as he gazed at the white-curtained windows, looking so solemn and so strange.
No, no, no; she would not notice, even if she had heard, and a strange feeling of elation came into the jealous breast.
“Come,” he said hoarsely, “let us go.”
“One moment, lad. Ah, yes,” said the Colonel. “Gloriana has heard the serenade, and is about to respond to her lover’s musically amatory call. Look, Dick, look.”
Richard Linnell’s heart sank, for a white arm drew back the curtain, and then the catch of the window fastening was pressed back, and a chord in the young man’s breast seemed to snap; but it was only the spring of the window hasp.
Click!
Volume One—Chapter Seven.After the Storm.The “ghastly serenade” it was called at Saltinville as the facts became known.That night Richard Linnell was standing with his teeth set, his throat dry, and a feeling of despair making his heart seem to sink, watching the white hand that was waved as soon as the sash was opened. Half blind with the blood that seemed to rush to his eyes, he glared at the window. Then a sudden revulsion of feeling came over him as a familiar voice that was not Claire’s cried, “Help!—a doctor!” and then the speaker seemed to stagger away.The rest was to Richard Linnell like some dream of horror, regarding which he recalled the next morning that he had thundered at the door, that he had helped to carry Claire to her room, and that he had afterwards been one of the group who stood waiting in the dining-room until the doctor came down to announce that Miss Denville was better—that Lady Teigne was quite dead.Then they had stolen out on tiptoe, and in the stillness of the early morning shaken hands all round and separated, the Major remaining with them, and walking with Colonel Mellersh and Richard Linnell to their door.“What a horror!” he said hoarsely. “I would not for the world have taken you two there had I known. Good-night—good-morning, I should say;” and he, too, said those words—perhaps originated the saying—“What a ghastly serenade!”Nine days—they could spare no more in Saltinville, for it would have spoiled the season—nine days’ wonder, and then the news that a certain royal person was coming down, news blown by the trumpet of Fame with her attendants, raised up enough wind to sweep away the memory of the horror on the Parade.“She was eighty if she was a day,” said Sir Matthew Bray: “and it was quite time the old wretch did die.”“Nice way of speaking of a lady whose relative you are seeking to be,” said Sir Harry Payne. “Sweet old nymph. How do you make it fit, Matt?”“Fit? Some scoundrel of a London tramp scaled the balcony, they say. Fine plunder, the rascal! All those diamonds.”“Which she might have left her sister, and then perhaps they would have come to you, Matt.”“Don’t talk stuff.”“Stuff? Why, you are besieging the belle. But, I say, I have my own theory about that murder.”“Eh, have you?” cried the great dragoon, staring open-mouthed.“Egad! yes, Matt. It was not a contemptible robbery.”“Wasn’t it? You don’t say so.”“But I do,” cried Sir Harry seriously. “Case of serious jealousy on the part of some lover of the bewitching creature. He came in the dead o’ night and smothered the Desdemona with a pillow. What do you say, Rockley?”The Major had strolled across the mess-room and heard these words.“Bah! Don’t ridicule the matter,” he said. “Change the subject.”“As you like, but the feeble flame only wanted a momentary touch of the extinguisher and it was gone.”At the house on the Parade there had been terrible anguish, and Claire Denville suffered painfully as she passed through the ordeal of the examination that ensued.But everything was very straightforward and plain. There were the marks of some one having climbed up the pillar—an easy enough task. The window opened without difficulty from without, a pot or two lay overturned in the balcony, a chair in the drawing-room, evidently the work of some stranger, and the valuable suite of diamonds was gone.The constable arrested three men of the street tumbler and wandering vagrant type, who were examined, proved easily that they were elsewhere; and after the vote of condolence to our esteemed fellow-townsman, Stuart Denville, Esq, which followed the inquest, there seemed nothing more to be done but to bury Lady Teigne, which was accordingly done, and the principal undertaker cleared a hundred pounds by the grand funeral that took place, though it was quite a year before Lady Drelincourt would pay the whole of his bill.So with Lady Teigne the horror was buried too, and in a fortnight the event that at one time threatened to interfere with the shopkeepers’ and lodging-letters’ season was forgotten.For that space of time, too, the familiar figure of the Master of the Ceremonies was not seen upon the Parade. Miss Denville was very ill, it was said, and after the funeral Isaac had to work hard at answering the door to receive the many cards that were left by fashionable people, till there was quite a heap in the old china bowl that stood in the narrow hall.But the outside world knew nothing of the agonies of mind endured by the two principal occupants of that house—of the nights of sleepless horror passed by Claire as she knelt and prayed for guidance, and of the hours during which the Master of the Ceremonies sat alone, staring blankly before him as if at some scene which he was ever witnessing, and which seemed to wither him, mind and body, at one stroke.For that fortnight, save at the inquest, father and daughter had not met, but passed their time in their rooms. But the time was gliding on, and they had to meet—the question occurring to each—how was it to be?“I must leave it to chance,” thought the Master of the Ceremonies, with a shiver; and after a fierce struggle to master the agony he felt, he knew that in future he must lead two lives. So putting on his mask, he one morning walked down to the breakfast-room, and took his accustomed place.Outwardly he seemed perfectly calm, and, save that the lines about his temples and the corners of his lips seemed deeper, he was little changed; but as he walked he was conscious of a tremulous feeling in the knees, and even when seated, that the curious palsied sensation went on.On the previous night Morton had come in from a secret fishing excursion, to find the house dark and still, and he had stood with his hands in his pockets hesitating as to whether he should go and take a lesson in smoking with Isaac in the pantry, steal down to the beach, or creep upstairs.He finally decided on the latter course, and going up to the top of the house on tiptoe, he tapped softly at Claire’s bedroom door.It was opened directly by his sister, who had evidently just risen from an old dimity-covered easy-chair. She was in a long white dressing-gown, and, seen by the light of the one tallow candle on the table, she looked so pale and ghastly that the lad uttered an ejaculation and caught hold of her thin, cold hands.“Claire!—Sis!”They were the first warm words of sympathy she had heard since that horrible night; and in a moment the icy horror upon her face broke up, her lips quivered, and, throwing her arms around her brother’s neck, she burst into such a passion of hysterical sobbing that, as he held her to his breast, he grew alarmed.He had stepped into the little white room where the flower screen stood out against the night sky, and as the door swung to, he had felt Claire sinking upon her knees, and imitating her action, he had held her there for some time till the attitude grew irksome, and then sank lower till he was seated on the carpet, holding his sister half-reclining across his breast.“Oh! don’t—don’t, Claire—Sis,” he whispered from time to time, as he kissed the quivering lips, and strove in his boyish way to soothe her. “Sis dear, you’ll give yourself such a jolly headache. Oh, I say, what’s the good of crying like that?”For answer she only clung the tighter, the pent-up agony escaping in her tears, though she kissed him passionately again and again, and nestled to his breast.“You’ll make yourself ill, you know,” he whispered. “I say, don’t. The dad’s ill, and you’ll upset him more.”Still she sobbed on and wept, the outburst saving her from some more terrible mental strain.“I wanted to come and comfort you,” he said. “I did not know you’d go on like this.”She could not tell him that he was comforting her; that she had been tossed by a horrible life-storm that threatened to wreck her reason, and that when she had lain longing for the sympathy of the sister who now kept away, saying it was too horrible to come there now, she had found no life-buoy to which to cling. And now her younger brother had come—the elder forbidden the house—and the intensity of the relief she felt was extreme.“Here, I can’t stand this,” he said at last, almost roughly. “I shall go down and send Ike for the doctor.”She clung to him in an agony of dread lest he should go, and her sobs grew less frequent.“Come, that’s better,” he said, and he went on in his rough boyish selfishness, talking of his troubles and ignoring those of others, unconsciously strengthening Claire, as he awakened her to a sense of the duties she owed him, and giving her mental force for the terrible meeting and struggle that was to come.For she dared not think. She shrank from mentally arguing out those two questions of duty—to society and to her father.Was she to speak and tell all she knew?Was she to be silent?All she could do was to shrink within herself, and try to make everything pass out of her thoughts while she was sinking into the icy chains of idiocy.But now, when she had been giving up completely, and at times gazing out to sea with horrible thoughts assailing her, and suggestions like temptations to seek for oblivion as the only escape from the agony she suffered, the life-raft had reached her hands, and she clung to it with all the tenacity of one mentally drowning fast.There was something soothing in the very sound of her brother’s rough voice speaking in a hoarse whisper; and his selfish repinings over the petty discomforts he had suffered came like words of comfort and rest.“It has been so jolly blank and miserable downstairs,” he went on as he held her, and involuntarily rocked himself to and fro. “Ike and Eliza have been always gossiping at the back and sneaking out to take dinner or tea or supper with somebody’s servants, so as to palaver about what’s gone on here.”A pause.“There’s been scarcely anything to eat. I’ve been half-starved.”“Oh, Morton, my poor boy!”Those were the first words Claire had uttered since the inquest, and they were followed by a fresh burst of sobs.“Oh, come, come. Do leave off,” he cried pettishly. “I say it’s all very well for the old man to growl at me for fishing, but if I hadn’t gone catching dabs and a little conger or two, I should have been starved.”She raised her face and kissed him. Some one else was suffering, and her woman’s instinct to help was beginning to work.“What do you think I did, Sis? Oh, you don’t know. I’d been up to Burnett’s to see May, but the beggars had sneaked off and gone to London. Just like Franky Sneerums and wax-doll May. Pretty sort of a sister to keep away when we’re in trouble.”“Oh, don’t, my dear boy,” whispered Claire in a choking voice.“Oh, yes, I shall. They’re ashamed of me and of all of us. Just as if we could help the old girl being killed here.”A horrible spasm ran through Claire.“Don’t jump like that, stupid,” said Morton roughly. “You didn’t kill her.”“Hush! hush!”“No, I shan’t hush. It’ll do you good to talk and hear what people say, my pretty old darling Sis. There, there hush-a-bye, baby. Cuddle up close, and let’s comfort you. What’s the matter now?”Claire had struggled up, with her hands upon his shoulders, and was gazing wildly into his eyes.“What—what do people say?” she panted.“Be still, little goose—no; pretty little white pigeon,” he said, more softly, as he tried to draw her towards him.“What—do they say?” she cried, in a hoarse whisper, and she trembled violently.“Why, that it is a jolly good job the old woman is dead, for she was no use to anyone.”Claire groaned as she yielded once more to his embrace.“Fisherman Dick says—I say, he is a close old nut there’s no getting anything out of him!—says he don’t see that people like Lady Teigne are any use in the world.”“Morton!”“Oh, it’s all right. I’m only telling you what he said. He says too that the chap who did it—I say, don’t kick out like that, Sis. Yes, I shall go on: I’m doing you good. Fisherman Dick, and Mrs Miggles too, said that I ought to try and rouse you up, and I’m doing it. You’re ever so much better already. Why, your hands were like dabs when I came up, and now they are nice and warm.”She caressed his cheek with them, and he kissed her as she laid her head on his shoulder.“Dick Miggles said that the diamonds would never do the chap any good who stole ’em.”Once more that hysterical start, but the boy only clasped his sister more tightly, and went on:“Dick says he never knew anyone prosper who robbed or murdered, or did anything wrong, except those who smuggled. I say, Sis, I do feel sometimes as if I should go in for a bit of smuggling. There are some rare games going on.”Claire clung to him as if exhausted by her emotion.“Dick’s been in for lots of it, I know, only he’s too close to speak. I don’t know what I should have done if it hadn’t been for them. I’ve taken the fish I’ve caught up there, and Polly Miggles has cooked them, and we’ve had regular feeds.”“You have been up there, Morton?” said Claire wildly.“Yes; you needn’t tell the old man. What was I to do? I couldn’t get anything to eat here. I nursed the little girl for Mrs Miggles while she cooked, and Dick has laughed at me to see me nurse the little thing, and said it was rum. But I don’t mind; she’s a pretty little tit, and Dick has taught her to call me uncle.”
The “ghastly serenade” it was called at Saltinville as the facts became known.
That night Richard Linnell was standing with his teeth set, his throat dry, and a feeling of despair making his heart seem to sink, watching the white hand that was waved as soon as the sash was opened. Half blind with the blood that seemed to rush to his eyes, he glared at the window. Then a sudden revulsion of feeling came over him as a familiar voice that was not Claire’s cried, “Help!—a doctor!” and then the speaker seemed to stagger away.
The rest was to Richard Linnell like some dream of horror, regarding which he recalled the next morning that he had thundered at the door, that he had helped to carry Claire to her room, and that he had afterwards been one of the group who stood waiting in the dining-room until the doctor came down to announce that Miss Denville was better—that Lady Teigne was quite dead.
Then they had stolen out on tiptoe, and in the stillness of the early morning shaken hands all round and separated, the Major remaining with them, and walking with Colonel Mellersh and Richard Linnell to their door.
“What a horror!” he said hoarsely. “I would not for the world have taken you two there had I known. Good-night—good-morning, I should say;” and he, too, said those words—perhaps originated the saying—“What a ghastly serenade!”
Nine days—they could spare no more in Saltinville, for it would have spoiled the season—nine days’ wonder, and then the news that a certain royal person was coming down, news blown by the trumpet of Fame with her attendants, raised up enough wind to sweep away the memory of the horror on the Parade.
“She was eighty if she was a day,” said Sir Matthew Bray: “and it was quite time the old wretch did die.”
“Nice way of speaking of a lady whose relative you are seeking to be,” said Sir Harry Payne. “Sweet old nymph. How do you make it fit, Matt?”
“Fit? Some scoundrel of a London tramp scaled the balcony, they say. Fine plunder, the rascal! All those diamonds.”
“Which she might have left her sister, and then perhaps they would have come to you, Matt.”
“Don’t talk stuff.”
“Stuff? Why, you are besieging the belle. But, I say, I have my own theory about that murder.”
“Eh, have you?” cried the great dragoon, staring open-mouthed.
“Egad! yes, Matt. It was not a contemptible robbery.”
“Wasn’t it? You don’t say so.”
“But I do,” cried Sir Harry seriously. “Case of serious jealousy on the part of some lover of the bewitching creature. He came in the dead o’ night and smothered the Desdemona with a pillow. What do you say, Rockley?”
The Major had strolled across the mess-room and heard these words.
“Bah! Don’t ridicule the matter,” he said. “Change the subject.”
“As you like, but the feeble flame only wanted a momentary touch of the extinguisher and it was gone.”
At the house on the Parade there had been terrible anguish, and Claire Denville suffered painfully as she passed through the ordeal of the examination that ensued.
But everything was very straightforward and plain. There were the marks of some one having climbed up the pillar—an easy enough task. The window opened without difficulty from without, a pot or two lay overturned in the balcony, a chair in the drawing-room, evidently the work of some stranger, and the valuable suite of diamonds was gone.
The constable arrested three men of the street tumbler and wandering vagrant type, who were examined, proved easily that they were elsewhere; and after the vote of condolence to our esteemed fellow-townsman, Stuart Denville, Esq, which followed the inquest, there seemed nothing more to be done but to bury Lady Teigne, which was accordingly done, and the principal undertaker cleared a hundred pounds by the grand funeral that took place, though it was quite a year before Lady Drelincourt would pay the whole of his bill.
So with Lady Teigne the horror was buried too, and in a fortnight the event that at one time threatened to interfere with the shopkeepers’ and lodging-letters’ season was forgotten.
For that space of time, too, the familiar figure of the Master of the Ceremonies was not seen upon the Parade. Miss Denville was very ill, it was said, and after the funeral Isaac had to work hard at answering the door to receive the many cards that were left by fashionable people, till there was quite a heap in the old china bowl that stood in the narrow hall.
But the outside world knew nothing of the agonies of mind endured by the two principal occupants of that house—of the nights of sleepless horror passed by Claire as she knelt and prayed for guidance, and of the hours during which the Master of the Ceremonies sat alone, staring blankly before him as if at some scene which he was ever witnessing, and which seemed to wither him, mind and body, at one stroke.
For that fortnight, save at the inquest, father and daughter had not met, but passed their time in their rooms. But the time was gliding on, and they had to meet—the question occurring to each—how was it to be?
“I must leave it to chance,” thought the Master of the Ceremonies, with a shiver; and after a fierce struggle to master the agony he felt, he knew that in future he must lead two lives. So putting on his mask, he one morning walked down to the breakfast-room, and took his accustomed place.
Outwardly he seemed perfectly calm, and, save that the lines about his temples and the corners of his lips seemed deeper, he was little changed; but as he walked he was conscious of a tremulous feeling in the knees, and even when seated, that the curious palsied sensation went on.
On the previous night Morton had come in from a secret fishing excursion, to find the house dark and still, and he had stood with his hands in his pockets hesitating as to whether he should go and take a lesson in smoking with Isaac in the pantry, steal down to the beach, or creep upstairs.
He finally decided on the latter course, and going up to the top of the house on tiptoe, he tapped softly at Claire’s bedroom door.
It was opened directly by his sister, who had evidently just risen from an old dimity-covered easy-chair. She was in a long white dressing-gown, and, seen by the light of the one tallow candle on the table, she looked so pale and ghastly that the lad uttered an ejaculation and caught hold of her thin, cold hands.
“Claire!—Sis!”
They were the first warm words of sympathy she had heard since that horrible night; and in a moment the icy horror upon her face broke up, her lips quivered, and, throwing her arms around her brother’s neck, she burst into such a passion of hysterical sobbing that, as he held her to his breast, he grew alarmed.
He had stepped into the little white room where the flower screen stood out against the night sky, and as the door swung to, he had felt Claire sinking upon her knees, and imitating her action, he had held her there for some time till the attitude grew irksome, and then sank lower till he was seated on the carpet, holding his sister half-reclining across his breast.
“Oh! don’t—don’t, Claire—Sis,” he whispered from time to time, as he kissed the quivering lips, and strove in his boyish way to soothe her. “Sis dear, you’ll give yourself such a jolly headache. Oh, I say, what’s the good of crying like that?”
For answer she only clung the tighter, the pent-up agony escaping in her tears, though she kissed him passionately again and again, and nestled to his breast.
“You’ll make yourself ill, you know,” he whispered. “I say, don’t. The dad’s ill, and you’ll upset him more.”
Still she sobbed on and wept, the outburst saving her from some more terrible mental strain.
“I wanted to come and comfort you,” he said. “I did not know you’d go on like this.”
She could not tell him that he was comforting her; that she had been tossed by a horrible life-storm that threatened to wreck her reason, and that when she had lain longing for the sympathy of the sister who now kept away, saying it was too horrible to come there now, she had found no life-buoy to which to cling. And now her younger brother had come—the elder forbidden the house—and the intensity of the relief she felt was extreme.
“Here, I can’t stand this,” he said at last, almost roughly. “I shall go down and send Ike for the doctor.”
She clung to him in an agony of dread lest he should go, and her sobs grew less frequent.
“Come, that’s better,” he said, and he went on in his rough boyish selfishness, talking of his troubles and ignoring those of others, unconsciously strengthening Claire, as he awakened her to a sense of the duties she owed him, and giving her mental force for the terrible meeting and struggle that was to come.
For she dared not think. She shrank from mentally arguing out those two questions of duty—to society and to her father.
Was she to speak and tell all she knew?
Was she to be silent?
All she could do was to shrink within herself, and try to make everything pass out of her thoughts while she was sinking into the icy chains of idiocy.
But now, when she had been giving up completely, and at times gazing out to sea with horrible thoughts assailing her, and suggestions like temptations to seek for oblivion as the only escape from the agony she suffered, the life-raft had reached her hands, and she clung to it with all the tenacity of one mentally drowning fast.
There was something soothing in the very sound of her brother’s rough voice speaking in a hoarse whisper; and his selfish repinings over the petty discomforts he had suffered came like words of comfort and rest.
“It has been so jolly blank and miserable downstairs,” he went on as he held her, and involuntarily rocked himself to and fro. “Ike and Eliza have been always gossiping at the back and sneaking out to take dinner or tea or supper with somebody’s servants, so as to palaver about what’s gone on here.”
A pause.
“There’s been scarcely anything to eat. I’ve been half-starved.”
“Oh, Morton, my poor boy!”
Those were the first words Claire had uttered since the inquest, and they were followed by a fresh burst of sobs.
“Oh, come, come. Do leave off,” he cried pettishly. “I say it’s all very well for the old man to growl at me for fishing, but if I hadn’t gone catching dabs and a little conger or two, I should have been starved.”
She raised her face and kissed him. Some one else was suffering, and her woman’s instinct to help was beginning to work.
“What do you think I did, Sis? Oh, you don’t know. I’d been up to Burnett’s to see May, but the beggars had sneaked off and gone to London. Just like Franky Sneerums and wax-doll May. Pretty sort of a sister to keep away when we’re in trouble.”
“Oh, don’t, my dear boy,” whispered Claire in a choking voice.
“Oh, yes, I shall. They’re ashamed of me and of all of us. Just as if we could help the old girl being killed here.”
A horrible spasm ran through Claire.
“Don’t jump like that, stupid,” said Morton roughly. “You didn’t kill her.”
“Hush! hush!”
“No, I shan’t hush. It’ll do you good to talk and hear what people say, my pretty old darling Sis. There, there hush-a-bye, baby. Cuddle up close, and let’s comfort you. What’s the matter now?”
Claire had struggled up, with her hands upon his shoulders, and was gazing wildly into his eyes.
“What—what do people say?” she panted.
“Be still, little goose—no; pretty little white pigeon,” he said, more softly, as he tried to draw her towards him.
“What—do they say?” she cried, in a hoarse whisper, and she trembled violently.
“Why, that it is a jolly good job the old woman is dead, for she was no use to anyone.”
Claire groaned as she yielded once more to his embrace.
“Fisherman Dick says—I say, he is a close old nut there’s no getting anything out of him!—says he don’t see that people like Lady Teigne are any use in the world.”
“Morton!”
“Oh, it’s all right. I’m only telling you what he said. He says too that the chap who did it—I say, don’t kick out like that, Sis. Yes, I shall go on: I’m doing you good. Fisherman Dick, and Mrs Miggles too, said that I ought to try and rouse you up, and I’m doing it. You’re ever so much better already. Why, your hands were like dabs when I came up, and now they are nice and warm.”
She caressed his cheek with them, and he kissed her as she laid her head on his shoulder.
“Dick Miggles said that the diamonds would never do the chap any good who stole ’em.”
Once more that hysterical start, but the boy only clasped his sister more tightly, and went on:
“Dick says he never knew anyone prosper who robbed or murdered, or did anything wrong, except those who smuggled. I say, Sis, I do feel sometimes as if I should go in for a bit of smuggling. There are some rare games going on.”
Claire clung to him as if exhausted by her emotion.
“Dick’s been in for lots of it, I know, only he’s too close to speak. I don’t know what I should have done if it hadn’t been for them. I’ve taken the fish I’ve caught up there, and Polly Miggles has cooked them, and we’ve had regular feeds.”
“You have been up there, Morton?” said Claire wildly.
“Yes; you needn’t tell the old man. What was I to do? I couldn’t get anything to eat here. I nursed the little girl for Mrs Miggles while she cooked, and Dick has laughed at me to see me nurse the little thing, and said it was rum. But I don’t mind; she’s a pretty little tit, and Dick has taught her to call me uncle.”
Volume One—Chapter Eight.The First Meeting.It was the next morning that the Master of the Ceremonies made his effort, and went down to the breakfast-room, where he sat by the table, playing with the newspaper that he dared not try to read, and waiting, wondering, in a dazed way, whether his son or his daughter would come in to breakfast.The paper fell from his hands, and as he sat there he caught at the table, drawing the cloth aside and holding it with a spasmodic clutch, as one who was in danger of falling.For there was the creak of a stair, the faint rustle of a dress, and he knew that the time had come.He tried to rise to his feet, but his limbs refused their office, and the palsied trembling that had attacked him rose to his hands. Then he loosened his hold of the table, and sank back in his chair, clinging to the arms, and with his chin falling upon his breast.At that moment the door opened, and Claire glided into the room.She took a couple of steps forward, after closing the door, and then caught at the back of a chair to support herself.The agony and horror in his child’s face, as their eyes met, galvanised Denville into life, and, starting up, he took a step forward, extending his trembling hands.“Claire—my child!” he cried, in a husky voice.His hands dropped, his jaw fell, his eyes seemed to be starting, as he read the look of horror, loathing, and shame in his daughter’s face, and for the space of a full minute neither spoke.Then, as if moved to make another effort, he started spasmodically forward.“Claire, my child—if you only knew!”But she shrank from him with the look of horror intensified.“Don’t—don’t touch me,” she whispered, in a harsh, dry voice. “Don’t: pray don’t.”“But, Claire—”“I know,” she whispered, trembling violently. “It is our secret. I will not speak. Father—they should kill me first; but don’t—don’t. Father—father—you have broken my heart!”As she burst forth in a piteous wail in these words, the terrible involuntary shrinking he had seen in her passed away. The stiff angularity that had seemed to pervade her was gone, and she sank upon her knees, holding by the back of the chair, and rested her brow upon her hands, sobbing and drawing her breath painfully.He stood there gazing down at her, but for a time he did not move. Then, taking a step forward, he saw that she heard him, and shrank again.“Claire, my child,” he gasped once more, “if you only knew!”“Hush!—for God’s sake, hush!” she said, in a whisper. “Can you not see? It is our secret. You are my father. I am trying so hard. But don’t—don’t—”“Don’t touch you!” he cried slowly, as she left her sentence unspoken. “Well, be it so,” he added, with a piteous sigh; “I will not complain.”“Let it be like some horrible dream,” she said, in the same low, painful whisper. “Let me—let me go away.”“No!” he cried, with a change coming over him; and he drew himself up as if her words had given him a sudden strength. “You must stay. You have duties here, and I have mine. Claire, you must stay, and it must be to you—to me, like some horrible dream. Some day you may learn the horrible temptations that beset my path. Till then I accept my fate, for I dare not confide more, even to you. Heaven help me in this horror, and give me strength!” he muttered to himself, with closed eyes. “I dare not die; I cannot—I will not die. I must wear the mask. Two lives to live, when heretofore one only has been so hard!”Just then there was a quick step outside, and the tall figure of Morton Denville passed the window.The Master of the Ceremonies glanced at Claire, who started to her feet, and then their eyes met.“For his sake, Claire,” he whispered, “if not for mine.”“For his sake—father,” she answered, slowly and reverently, as if it were a prayer; and then to herself, “and for yours—the duty I owe you as your child.”“And I,” he muttered to himself, as he stood with a white hand resting upon the table. “I must bear it to the end. I must wear my mask as of old, and wilt Thou give me pardon and the strength?”Morton entered the room fresh and animated, and his eyes lit up as he saw that it was occupied.“That’s better!” he cried. “Morning, father,” and he clasped the old man’s hand.“Good-morning, my dear boy,” was the answer, in trembling tones; and then, with the ghost of a smile on the wan lips, “have you been—”Morton had boisterously clasped Claire in his arms, and kissed her with effusion; and as he saw the loving, wistful look in his child’s face, as she passionately returned the caress—one that he told himself would never again be bestowed on him—a pang shot through the old man’s breast, and the agony seemed greater than he could bear.“So—so glad to see you down again, my dear, dear, dear old Sis,” cried Morton, with a kiss at almost every word. Then, half holding her still, he turned to the pale, wistful face at the other side of the room, and exclaimed:“Yes, sir. Don’t be angry with me. Ihavebeen down again, catching dabs.”
It was the next morning that the Master of the Ceremonies made his effort, and went down to the breakfast-room, where he sat by the table, playing with the newspaper that he dared not try to read, and waiting, wondering, in a dazed way, whether his son or his daughter would come in to breakfast.
The paper fell from his hands, and as he sat there he caught at the table, drawing the cloth aside and holding it with a spasmodic clutch, as one who was in danger of falling.
For there was the creak of a stair, the faint rustle of a dress, and he knew that the time had come.
He tried to rise to his feet, but his limbs refused their office, and the palsied trembling that had attacked him rose to his hands. Then he loosened his hold of the table, and sank back in his chair, clinging to the arms, and with his chin falling upon his breast.
At that moment the door opened, and Claire glided into the room.
She took a couple of steps forward, after closing the door, and then caught at the back of a chair to support herself.
The agony and horror in his child’s face, as their eyes met, galvanised Denville into life, and, starting up, he took a step forward, extending his trembling hands.
“Claire—my child!” he cried, in a husky voice.
His hands dropped, his jaw fell, his eyes seemed to be starting, as he read the look of horror, loathing, and shame in his daughter’s face, and for the space of a full minute neither spoke.
Then, as if moved to make another effort, he started spasmodically forward.
“Claire, my child—if you only knew!”
But she shrank from him with the look of horror intensified.
“Don’t—don’t touch me,” she whispered, in a harsh, dry voice. “Don’t: pray don’t.”
“But, Claire—”
“I know,” she whispered, trembling violently. “It is our secret. I will not speak. Father—they should kill me first; but don’t—don’t. Father—father—you have broken my heart!”
As she burst forth in a piteous wail in these words, the terrible involuntary shrinking he had seen in her passed away. The stiff angularity that had seemed to pervade her was gone, and she sank upon her knees, holding by the back of the chair, and rested her brow upon her hands, sobbing and drawing her breath painfully.
He stood there gazing down at her, but for a time he did not move. Then, taking a step forward, he saw that she heard him, and shrank again.
“Claire, my child,” he gasped once more, “if you only knew!”
“Hush!—for God’s sake, hush!” she said, in a whisper. “Can you not see? It is our secret. You are my father. I am trying so hard. But don’t—don’t—”
“Don’t touch you!” he cried slowly, as she left her sentence unspoken. “Well, be it so,” he added, with a piteous sigh; “I will not complain.”
“Let it be like some horrible dream,” she said, in the same low, painful whisper. “Let me—let me go away.”
“No!” he cried, with a change coming over him; and he drew himself up as if her words had given him a sudden strength. “You must stay. You have duties here, and I have mine. Claire, you must stay, and it must be to you—to me, like some horrible dream. Some day you may learn the horrible temptations that beset my path. Till then I accept my fate, for I dare not confide more, even to you. Heaven help me in this horror, and give me strength!” he muttered to himself, with closed eyes. “I dare not die; I cannot—I will not die. I must wear the mask. Two lives to live, when heretofore one only has been so hard!”
Just then there was a quick step outside, and the tall figure of Morton Denville passed the window.
The Master of the Ceremonies glanced at Claire, who started to her feet, and then their eyes met.
“For his sake, Claire,” he whispered, “if not for mine.”
“For his sake—father,” she answered, slowly and reverently, as if it were a prayer; and then to herself, “and for yours—the duty I owe you as your child.”
“And I,” he muttered to himself, as he stood with a white hand resting upon the table. “I must bear it to the end. I must wear my mask as of old, and wilt Thou give me pardon and the strength?”
Morton entered the room fresh and animated, and his eyes lit up as he saw that it was occupied.
“That’s better!” he cried. “Morning, father,” and he clasped the old man’s hand.
“Good-morning, my dear boy,” was the answer, in trembling tones; and then, with the ghost of a smile on the wan lips, “have you been—”
Morton had boisterously clasped Claire in his arms, and kissed her with effusion; and as he saw the loving, wistful look in his child’s face, as she passionately returned the caress—one that he told himself would never again be bestowed on him—a pang shot through the old man’s breast, and the agony seemed greater than he could bear.
“So—so glad to see you down again, my dear, dear, dear old Sis,” cried Morton, with a kiss at almost every word. Then, half holding her still, he turned to the pale, wistful face at the other side of the room, and exclaimed:
“Yes, sir. Don’t be angry with me. Ihavebeen down again, catching dabs.”
Volume One—Chapter Nine.Wearing His Mask.“Really, ladies, I—er—should—er—esteem it an honour, but my powers here are limited, and—”“Rubbish!”“You’ll pardon me?”“I say—rubbish, Denville.”“Mamma, will you hold your tongue?”“No, miss; if it comes to that, I won’t! Speaking like that to your own mother, who’s always working for you as I am, right out here on the open cliff, where goodness knows who mayn’t—”“Mother, be silent!”“Silent, indeed!”“Ladies, ladies, you’ll pardon me. I say my powers here are—er—very limited.”“Yes, I know all about that, but you must get invitations for mamma and me for the next Assembly.”“I’ll try, Miss Dean, but—you’ll pardon me—”“There, don’t shilly-shally with him, Betsy; it’s all business. Look here, Denville, the day the invitations come there’ll be five guineas wrapped up in silver paper under the chayny shepherdess on my droring-room mantelpiece, if you’ll just call and look under.”“Really, Mrs Dean, you—you shock me. I could not think of—er—really—er—I will try my best.”“That you will, I know, Mr Denville. Don’t take any notice of mamma I hope Miss Denville and Mrs Burnett are well.”“In the best of health, Miss Dean, I thank you. I will—er—do my best. A lovely morning, Mrs Dean. Your humble servant. Miss Cora, yours. Good-morning.”“A nasty old humbug; but he’ll have the invitations sent,” said Mrs Dean, a big, well-developed, well-preserved woman of fifty, with bright dark eyes that glistened and shone like pebbles polished by the constant attrition of the blinking lids.“I wish you would not be so horridly coarse, mother; and if you don’t drop that ‘Betsy’ we shall quarrel,” said the younger lady, who bore a sufficient likeness to the elder for anyone to have stamped them mother and daughter, though the latter was wanting in her parent’s hardness of outline, being a magnificent specimen of womanly beauty. Dark and thoroughly classic of feature, large-eyed, full-lipped, perhaps rather too highly coloured, but this was carried off by the luxuriant black hair, worn in large ringlets flowing down either side of the rounded cheeks they half concealed, by her well-arched black brows and long dark lashes, which shaded her great swimming eyes. Her figure was perfect, and she was in full possession of the ripest womanly beauty, as she walked slowly and with haughty carriage along the cliff, beside the elder dame.Both ladies were dressed in the very height of the fashion, with enormous wide-spreading open bonnets, heavy with ostrich plumes, tightly-fitting dresses, with broad waistbands well up under the arms, loose scarves, long gloves and reticules ornamented with huge bows of the stiffest silk, like Brobdingnagian butterflies.“Horrid, coarse indeed! I suppose I mustn’t open my mouth next,” said the elder lady.“It would be just as well not,” said the younger, “when we are out.”“Then I shall open it as wide as I like, ma’am, and when I like, so now then, Betsy.”“As you please; only if you do, I shall go home, and I shall not go to Assembly or ball with you. It was your wish that I should be Cora.”“No, it wasn’t. I wanted Coral, or Coralie, miss.”“And I preferred Cora,” said the younger lady with languid hauteur, as if she were practising a part, “and you are always blurting out Betsy.”“Blurting! There’s a way to speak to your poor mother, who has made the lady of you that you are. Carriages and diamonds, and grand dinners, and—”“The smell of the orange peel, and the candles, and the memory of the theatre tacked on to me. ‘Actress!’ you can see every fine madam we pass say with her eyes, as she draws her skirt aside and turns from me as if I polluted the cliff. I’ve a deal to be proud of,” cried the younger woman fiercely. “For heaven’s sake, hold your tongue!”“Don’t go on like that, Betsy—Cora, I mean, my dear. Let ’em sneer. If your poor, dear, dead father did keep a show—well, there, don’t bite me, Bet—Cora—theatre, and make his money, it’s nothing to them, and you’ll make a marriage yet, as’ll surprise some of ’em if you plays your cards proper!”“Mother!”“Say mamma, my dear, now; and do smooth down, my beauty. There, there, there! I didn’t mean to upset you. There’s Lord Carboro’ coming. Don’t let him see we’ve been quarrelling again. I don’t know, though,” she added softly, as she noticed her child’s heightened colour and heaving bosom; “it do make you look so ’andsome, my dear.”“Pish!”“It do, really. What a beauty you are, Cora. I don’t wonder at the fools going mad after you and toasting you—as may be a countess if you like.”“Turn down here,” said Cora abruptly. “I don’t want to see Carboro’.”“But he made me a sign, my dear; with his eyeglass, dear.”“Let him make a hundred,” cried Cora angrily. “He is not going to play with me. Why, he’s hanging about after that chit of Denville’s.”“Tchah! Cora dear. I wouldn’t be jealous of a washed-out doll of a thing like that. Half-starved paupers; and with the disgrace of that horrid murder sticking all over their house.”“Jealous!” cried Cora, with a contemptuous laugh; “jealous of her! Not likely, mother; but I mean to make that old idiot smart if he thinks he is going to play fast and loose with me. Come along.”Without noticing the approaching figure, she turned up the next street, veiling her beautiful eyes once more with their long lashes, and gliding over the pavement with her magnificent figure full of soft undulations that the grotesque fashion of the dress of the day could not hide.“Oh, Cora, my darling,” said her mother, “how can you be so mad and obstinate!—throwing away your chances like that.”“Chances? What do you mean?” cried the beauty.“Why, you know, my dear. He has never married yet; and he’s so rich, and there’s his title.”“And are we so poor that we are to humble ourselves and beg because that man has a title?”“But it is such a title, Betsy,” whispered the elder woman.“And he is so old, and withered, and gouty, and is obliged to drive himself out in a ridiculous donkey-chaise.”“Now, what does that matter, dear?”“Not much to you, seemingly.”“Now, my lovely, don’t—don’t. To think that I might live to see my gal, Betsy Dean, a real countess, and such a one as there ain’t anywhere at court, and she flying in my face and turning her back upon her chances.”“Mother, do you want to put me in a rage.”“Not in the street, dear; but do—do—turn back!”“I shall not.”“Then I know the reason why,” cried the elder woman.“What do you mean?”“You’re thinking of that nasty, poverty-stricken, brown-faced fiddler of a fellow, who hasn’t even the decency to get himself shaved. I declare he looks more like a Jew than a Christian.”“You mean to make me angry, mother.”“I don’t care if I do. There, I say it’s a sin and a shame. A real Earl—a real live Lord as good as proposing to you, and you, you great silly soft goose, sighing and whining after a penniless pauper who won’t even look at you. Oh! the fools gals are!”Cora Dean’s lips were more scarlet than before, and her beautiful eyes flashed ominously, but she said nothing.“Going silly after a fellow like that, who’s for ever hanging about after Denville’s gal. Oh! I hav’n’t patience.”She said no more, for her daughter walked so fast that she became short of breath.“Egad! Juno’s put out,” said James, Earl of Carboro’, peer of the realm, speaking in a high-pitched voice, and then applying one glove to his very red lips, as if he were uneasy there. “What a magnificent figure, though! She’s devilish handsome, she is, egad! It’s just as well, perhaps. I won’t follow her. I’ll go on the pier. Let her come round if she likes, and if she doesn’t—why, demme, I don’t care if she doesn’t—now that—”He smacked his lips, and shook his head, and then drew himself up, rearranging his quaint beaver hat that came down fore and aft, curled up tightly at the sides, and spread out widely at the flat top. He gave his ancient body a bit of a writhe, and then raised his gold eyeglass to gaze at the pier, towards which people seemed to be hastening.“Eh? Egad, why, what’s the matter? Somebody gone overboard? I’ll go and see. No, I won’t; I’ll sit down and wait. I shall soon know. It’s deuced hot. Those railings are not safe.”He settled himself on the first seat on the cliff, and, giving the wide watered-silk ribbon a shake, used his broad and square gold-rimmed eyeglass once more, gazing through it at the long, old-fashioned pier that ran down into the sea, amongst whose piles the bright waves that washed the chalky shore of fashionable Saltinville were playing, while an unusual bustle was observable in the little crowd of loungers that clustered on the long low erection.Meanwhile the Master of the Ceremonies of the fashionable seaside resort honoured of royalty had continued his course towards the pier.The trouble at his house seemed to be forgotten, and in the pursuit of his profession to serve and be observed—gentleman-in-waiting on society—he looked to-day a tall, rather slight man, with nut-brown hair, carefully curled and slightly suggestive of having been grown elsewhere, closely-shaven face of rather careworn aspect, but delicate and refined. He was a decidedly handsome, elderly man, made ridiculous by a mincing dancing-master deportment, an assumed simpering smile, and a costume in the highest fashion of George the Third’s day. His hat has been already described, for it was evidently moulded on the same block as my Lord Carboro’s, and the rest of the description will do for the costume of both—in fact, with allowances for varieties of colour and tint, for that of most of the gentlemen who flit in and out in the varied scenes of this story of old seaside life.His thin, but shapely legs were in the tightest of pantaloons, over which were a glossy pair of Hessian boots with silken tassels where they met the knee. An extremely tight tail coat of a dark bottle green was buttoned over his breast, leaving exposed a goodly portion of a buff waistcoat below the bottom buttons, while the coat collar rose up like a protecting erection, as high as the wearer’s ears, and touched and threatened to tilt forward the curly brimmed hat. Two tiny points of a shirt collar appeared above the sides of an enormous stock which rigidly prisoned the neck; a delicate projection of cambric frilling rose from the breast; the hands were tightly gloved, one holding a riding-whip, the top of which was furnished with a broad-rimmed square eyeglass; and beneath the buff vest hung, suspended by a broad, black watered-silk ribbon, a huge bunch of gold seals and keys, one of the former being an enormous three-tabled topaz, which turned in its setting at the wearer’s will.Such was the aspect of the Master of the Ceremonies in morning costume—the man whose services were sought by every new arrival for introduction to the Assembly Room and to the fashionable society of the day—the man who, by unwritten canons of the fashionable world, must needs be consulted for every important fête or dance, and whose offerings from supplicants—he scorned to call them clients—were supposed to yield him a goodly income, and doubtless would do so, did the season happen to be long, and society at Saltinville in force.Parting from the ladies he had met, he passed on with a feeble smirk, growing more decided, his step more mincing, to bow to some lady, a proceeding calling for grace and ease. The raising and replacing of the hat was ever elaborate, so was the kissing of the tips of the gloves to the horsemen who cantered by. There was quite a kingly dignity full of benevolence in the nods bestowed here and there upon fishers and boatmen in dingy flannel trousers rising to the arm-pits, trousers that looked as if they would have stood alone. Then there was an encounter with a brace of beaux, a halt, the raising and replacing of their hats, and the snuff-box of the Master of the Ceremonies flashed in the bright autumn sunshine as it was offered to each in turn, and pinches were taken of the highly-scented Prince’s Mixture out of the historical prince’s present—a solid golden, deeply-chased, and massive box. Then there was a loud snuffling noise; three expirations of three breaths in a loud “Hah!” three snappings of three fingers and three thumbs, the withdrawal of three bandanna silk, gold, and scarlet handkerchiefs, to flip away a little snuff from three shirt frills; then the snuff-box flashed and glistened as it was held behind the Master of the Ceremonies, with his gold-mounted whip; three hats were raised again and replaced, their wearers having mutually decided that the day was charming, and Sir Harry Payne, officer of dragoons in mufti, like his chosen companion, Sir Matthew Bray, went one way to “ogle the gyurls,” the Master of Ceremonies the other to reach the pier.Everyone knew him; everyone sought and returned his bow. Fashion’s high priest, the ruler of the destinies of many in the season, he was not the man to slight, and the gatekeeper drew back, hat in hand, and the bandmaster bowed low, as with pointed toes, graceful carriage, snuff-box in one hand, eyeglass and whip for the horse he never rode in the other, Stuart Denville walked behind the mask he wore, mincing, and bowing, and condescending, past the groups that dotted the breezy resort.Half-way down the pier, but almost always hat in hand, and the set smile deepening the lines about his well-cut mouth, he became aware of some excitement towards the end.There was a shriek and then a babble of voices talking, cries for a boat, and a rush to the side, where a lady, who had arrived in a bath-chair, pushed by a tall footman in mourning livery, surmounted by a huge braided half-moon hat, was gesticulating wildly and going to and fro, now fanning herself with a monstrous black fan, now closing it with a snap, and tapping lady bystanders with it on the shoulder or arm.“He’ll be drowned. I’m sure he’ll be drowned. Why is there no boatman? Why is there no help? Oh, here is dear Mr Denville. Oh! Mr Denville, help, help, help!”Here the lady half turned round, and made with each cry of “help!” a backward step towards the Master of the Ceremonies, who had not accelerated his pace a whit, for fear of losing grace, and who was only just in time—the lady managed that—to catch her as she half leaned against his arm.“Dear Lady Drelincourt, what terrible accident has befallen us here?”“My darling!” murmured the lady. “Save him, oh, save him, or I shall die!”
“Really, ladies, I—er—should—er—esteem it an honour, but my powers here are limited, and—”
“Rubbish!”
“You’ll pardon me?”
“I say—rubbish, Denville.”
“Mamma, will you hold your tongue?”
“No, miss; if it comes to that, I won’t! Speaking like that to your own mother, who’s always working for you as I am, right out here on the open cliff, where goodness knows who mayn’t—”
“Mother, be silent!”
“Silent, indeed!”
“Ladies, ladies, you’ll pardon me. I say my powers here are—er—very limited.”
“Yes, I know all about that, but you must get invitations for mamma and me for the next Assembly.”
“I’ll try, Miss Dean, but—you’ll pardon me—”
“There, don’t shilly-shally with him, Betsy; it’s all business. Look here, Denville, the day the invitations come there’ll be five guineas wrapped up in silver paper under the chayny shepherdess on my droring-room mantelpiece, if you’ll just call and look under.”
“Really, Mrs Dean, you—you shock me. I could not think of—er—really—er—I will try my best.”
“That you will, I know, Mr Denville. Don’t take any notice of mamma I hope Miss Denville and Mrs Burnett are well.”
“In the best of health, Miss Dean, I thank you. I will—er—do my best. A lovely morning, Mrs Dean. Your humble servant. Miss Cora, yours. Good-morning.”
“A nasty old humbug; but he’ll have the invitations sent,” said Mrs Dean, a big, well-developed, well-preserved woman of fifty, with bright dark eyes that glistened and shone like pebbles polished by the constant attrition of the blinking lids.
“I wish you would not be so horridly coarse, mother; and if you don’t drop that ‘Betsy’ we shall quarrel,” said the younger lady, who bore a sufficient likeness to the elder for anyone to have stamped them mother and daughter, though the latter was wanting in her parent’s hardness of outline, being a magnificent specimen of womanly beauty. Dark and thoroughly classic of feature, large-eyed, full-lipped, perhaps rather too highly coloured, but this was carried off by the luxuriant black hair, worn in large ringlets flowing down either side of the rounded cheeks they half concealed, by her well-arched black brows and long dark lashes, which shaded her great swimming eyes. Her figure was perfect, and she was in full possession of the ripest womanly beauty, as she walked slowly and with haughty carriage along the cliff, beside the elder dame.
Both ladies were dressed in the very height of the fashion, with enormous wide-spreading open bonnets, heavy with ostrich plumes, tightly-fitting dresses, with broad waistbands well up under the arms, loose scarves, long gloves and reticules ornamented with huge bows of the stiffest silk, like Brobdingnagian butterflies.
“Horrid, coarse indeed! I suppose I mustn’t open my mouth next,” said the elder lady.
“It would be just as well not,” said the younger, “when we are out.”
“Then I shall open it as wide as I like, ma’am, and when I like, so now then, Betsy.”
“As you please; only if you do, I shall go home, and I shall not go to Assembly or ball with you. It was your wish that I should be Cora.”
“No, it wasn’t. I wanted Coral, or Coralie, miss.”
“And I preferred Cora,” said the younger lady with languid hauteur, as if she were practising a part, “and you are always blurting out Betsy.”
“Blurting! There’s a way to speak to your poor mother, who has made the lady of you that you are. Carriages and diamonds, and grand dinners, and—”
“The smell of the orange peel, and the candles, and the memory of the theatre tacked on to me. ‘Actress!’ you can see every fine madam we pass say with her eyes, as she draws her skirt aside and turns from me as if I polluted the cliff. I’ve a deal to be proud of,” cried the younger woman fiercely. “For heaven’s sake, hold your tongue!”
“Don’t go on like that, Betsy—Cora, I mean, my dear. Let ’em sneer. If your poor, dear, dead father did keep a show—well, there, don’t bite me, Bet—Cora—theatre, and make his money, it’s nothing to them, and you’ll make a marriage yet, as’ll surprise some of ’em if you plays your cards proper!”
“Mother!”
“Say mamma, my dear, now; and do smooth down, my beauty. There, there, there! I didn’t mean to upset you. There’s Lord Carboro’ coming. Don’t let him see we’ve been quarrelling again. I don’t know, though,” she added softly, as she noticed her child’s heightened colour and heaving bosom; “it do make you look so ’andsome, my dear.”
“Pish!”
“It do, really. What a beauty you are, Cora. I don’t wonder at the fools going mad after you and toasting you—as may be a countess if you like.”
“Turn down here,” said Cora abruptly. “I don’t want to see Carboro’.”
“But he made me a sign, my dear; with his eyeglass, dear.”
“Let him make a hundred,” cried Cora angrily. “He is not going to play with me. Why, he’s hanging about after that chit of Denville’s.”
“Tchah! Cora dear. I wouldn’t be jealous of a washed-out doll of a thing like that. Half-starved paupers; and with the disgrace of that horrid murder sticking all over their house.”
“Jealous!” cried Cora, with a contemptuous laugh; “jealous of her! Not likely, mother; but I mean to make that old idiot smart if he thinks he is going to play fast and loose with me. Come along.”
Without noticing the approaching figure, she turned up the next street, veiling her beautiful eyes once more with their long lashes, and gliding over the pavement with her magnificent figure full of soft undulations that the grotesque fashion of the dress of the day could not hide.
“Oh, Cora, my darling,” said her mother, “how can you be so mad and obstinate!—throwing away your chances like that.”
“Chances? What do you mean?” cried the beauty.
“Why, you know, my dear. He has never married yet; and he’s so rich, and there’s his title.”
“And are we so poor that we are to humble ourselves and beg because that man has a title?”
“But it is such a title, Betsy,” whispered the elder woman.
“And he is so old, and withered, and gouty, and is obliged to drive himself out in a ridiculous donkey-chaise.”
“Now, what does that matter, dear?”
“Not much to you, seemingly.”
“Now, my lovely, don’t—don’t. To think that I might live to see my gal, Betsy Dean, a real countess, and such a one as there ain’t anywhere at court, and she flying in my face and turning her back upon her chances.”
“Mother, do you want to put me in a rage.”
“Not in the street, dear; but do—do—turn back!”
“I shall not.”
“Then I know the reason why,” cried the elder woman.
“What do you mean?”
“You’re thinking of that nasty, poverty-stricken, brown-faced fiddler of a fellow, who hasn’t even the decency to get himself shaved. I declare he looks more like a Jew than a Christian.”
“You mean to make me angry, mother.”
“I don’t care if I do. There, I say it’s a sin and a shame. A real Earl—a real live Lord as good as proposing to you, and you, you great silly soft goose, sighing and whining after a penniless pauper who won’t even look at you. Oh! the fools gals are!”
Cora Dean’s lips were more scarlet than before, and her beautiful eyes flashed ominously, but she said nothing.
“Going silly after a fellow like that, who’s for ever hanging about after Denville’s gal. Oh! I hav’n’t patience.”
She said no more, for her daughter walked so fast that she became short of breath.
“Egad! Juno’s put out,” said James, Earl of Carboro’, peer of the realm, speaking in a high-pitched voice, and then applying one glove to his very red lips, as if he were uneasy there. “What a magnificent figure, though! She’s devilish handsome, she is, egad! It’s just as well, perhaps. I won’t follow her. I’ll go on the pier. Let her come round if she likes, and if she doesn’t—why, demme, I don’t care if she doesn’t—now that—”
He smacked his lips, and shook his head, and then drew himself up, rearranging his quaint beaver hat that came down fore and aft, curled up tightly at the sides, and spread out widely at the flat top. He gave his ancient body a bit of a writhe, and then raised his gold eyeglass to gaze at the pier, towards which people seemed to be hastening.
“Eh? Egad, why, what’s the matter? Somebody gone overboard? I’ll go and see. No, I won’t; I’ll sit down and wait. I shall soon know. It’s deuced hot. Those railings are not safe.”
He settled himself on the first seat on the cliff, and, giving the wide watered-silk ribbon a shake, used his broad and square gold-rimmed eyeglass once more, gazing through it at the long, old-fashioned pier that ran down into the sea, amongst whose piles the bright waves that washed the chalky shore of fashionable Saltinville were playing, while an unusual bustle was observable in the little crowd of loungers that clustered on the long low erection.
Meanwhile the Master of the Ceremonies of the fashionable seaside resort honoured of royalty had continued his course towards the pier.
The trouble at his house seemed to be forgotten, and in the pursuit of his profession to serve and be observed—gentleman-in-waiting on society—he looked to-day a tall, rather slight man, with nut-brown hair, carefully curled and slightly suggestive of having been grown elsewhere, closely-shaven face of rather careworn aspect, but delicate and refined. He was a decidedly handsome, elderly man, made ridiculous by a mincing dancing-master deportment, an assumed simpering smile, and a costume in the highest fashion of George the Third’s day. His hat has been already described, for it was evidently moulded on the same block as my Lord Carboro’s, and the rest of the description will do for the costume of both—in fact, with allowances for varieties of colour and tint, for that of most of the gentlemen who flit in and out in the varied scenes of this story of old seaside life.
His thin, but shapely legs were in the tightest of pantaloons, over which were a glossy pair of Hessian boots with silken tassels where they met the knee. An extremely tight tail coat of a dark bottle green was buttoned over his breast, leaving exposed a goodly portion of a buff waistcoat below the bottom buttons, while the coat collar rose up like a protecting erection, as high as the wearer’s ears, and touched and threatened to tilt forward the curly brimmed hat. Two tiny points of a shirt collar appeared above the sides of an enormous stock which rigidly prisoned the neck; a delicate projection of cambric frilling rose from the breast; the hands were tightly gloved, one holding a riding-whip, the top of which was furnished with a broad-rimmed square eyeglass; and beneath the buff vest hung, suspended by a broad, black watered-silk ribbon, a huge bunch of gold seals and keys, one of the former being an enormous three-tabled topaz, which turned in its setting at the wearer’s will.
Such was the aspect of the Master of the Ceremonies in morning costume—the man whose services were sought by every new arrival for introduction to the Assembly Room and to the fashionable society of the day—the man who, by unwritten canons of the fashionable world, must needs be consulted for every important fête or dance, and whose offerings from supplicants—he scorned to call them clients—were supposed to yield him a goodly income, and doubtless would do so, did the season happen to be long, and society at Saltinville in force.
Parting from the ladies he had met, he passed on with a feeble smirk, growing more decided, his step more mincing, to bow to some lady, a proceeding calling for grace and ease. The raising and replacing of the hat was ever elaborate, so was the kissing of the tips of the gloves to the horsemen who cantered by. There was quite a kingly dignity full of benevolence in the nods bestowed here and there upon fishers and boatmen in dingy flannel trousers rising to the arm-pits, trousers that looked as if they would have stood alone. Then there was an encounter with a brace of beaux, a halt, the raising and replacing of their hats, and the snuff-box of the Master of the Ceremonies flashed in the bright autumn sunshine as it was offered to each in turn, and pinches were taken of the highly-scented Prince’s Mixture out of the historical prince’s present—a solid golden, deeply-chased, and massive box. Then there was a loud snuffling noise; three expirations of three breaths in a loud “Hah!” three snappings of three fingers and three thumbs, the withdrawal of three bandanna silk, gold, and scarlet handkerchiefs, to flip away a little snuff from three shirt frills; then the snuff-box flashed and glistened as it was held behind the Master of the Ceremonies, with his gold-mounted whip; three hats were raised again and replaced, their wearers having mutually decided that the day was charming, and Sir Harry Payne, officer of dragoons in mufti, like his chosen companion, Sir Matthew Bray, went one way to “ogle the gyurls,” the Master of Ceremonies the other to reach the pier.
Everyone knew him; everyone sought and returned his bow. Fashion’s high priest, the ruler of the destinies of many in the season, he was not the man to slight, and the gatekeeper drew back, hat in hand, and the bandmaster bowed low, as with pointed toes, graceful carriage, snuff-box in one hand, eyeglass and whip for the horse he never rode in the other, Stuart Denville walked behind the mask he wore, mincing, and bowing, and condescending, past the groups that dotted the breezy resort.
Half-way down the pier, but almost always hat in hand, and the set smile deepening the lines about his well-cut mouth, he became aware of some excitement towards the end.
There was a shriek and then a babble of voices talking, cries for a boat, and a rush to the side, where a lady, who had arrived in a bath-chair, pushed by a tall footman in mourning livery, surmounted by a huge braided half-moon hat, was gesticulating wildly and going to and fro, now fanning herself with a monstrous black fan, now closing it with a snap, and tapping lady bystanders with it on the shoulder or arm.
“He’ll be drowned. I’m sure he’ll be drowned. Why is there no boatman? Why is there no help? Oh, here is dear Mr Denville. Oh! Mr Denville, help, help, help!”
Here the lady half turned round, and made with each cry of “help!” a backward step towards the Master of the Ceremonies, who had not accelerated his pace a whit, for fear of losing grace, and who was only just in time—the lady managed that—to catch her as she half leaned against his arm.
“Dear Lady Drelincourt, what terrible accident has befallen us here?”
“My darling!” murmured the lady. “Save him, oh, save him, or I shall die!”