Refused! rejected! Lord Ticehurst could scarcely believe it. "Declined the honour," she said; that was the way she put it. Declined the honour! "Whish!" went the whip over the heads of the roans, who became marvellously unsteady at the sound, and reared, and plunged, and pulled, and caused the middle-aged groom once again to peer over the head of the phaeton more nervously and uncomfortably than ever.
Lord Ticehurst could not understand the experience of the morning. The more he thought over it the more preposterous it appeared to him. Throughout the whole course of his life he had never had one wish thwarted. At Eton his fag did his exercises, and at Oxford the dons toadied him as dons only can toady; and in later life he had had henchmen innumerable, who bad received his every word as law. As for this affair with Miss Lambert, he--well, he didn't know; he had not been so cocksure about it at first, when he first began to be spooney on her. She was a deuced nice girl, there was no denying that,--clever, and all that kind of thing; sort of person that any fellow might be proud of to see sitting at the head of his table, and look deuced well at the Opera, and all that. Was not half so cocksure when he first began to be spooney; that was perhaps because he was spooney; fellows always thought they were not good enough for the woman they were spooney on; and--not good enough? that's a great notion! the idea of the Earl of Ticehurst not being good enough for--no, he couldn't say anything against her; she was an opera-singer, everyone knew, but she was a perfect lady. O d--, what a nuisance it was! Since he had made up his mind to it he had begun to look upon it as quite certain, as a result about which there could not be the smallest doubt; and now he saw that all his conjectures had been false and his plans foundationless. What could be her motive? No question of hoping to hook a larger fish? That was absurd. Lord Ticehurst reflected with a certain amount of consolation that there were very few larger fish than he in the waters preserved for matrimonial angling, and of those few none were likely to make Miss Lambert an offer. Not any question of personal objection? Even if such a thing were probable to a person in his position, Miss Lambert's manner to him had always been courteous, and occasionally cordial. No one could have been making mischief about him? No, he thought not; he did not go in to be strait-laced, and all that kind of thing, any more than any other fellow of his age; but there was nothing that anyone could lay hold of and make a fuss about; his name was not mentioned in conjunction with any woman's, or anything of that kind that a woman might find objectionable in the man who wanted to marry her. What, then, could it be? Could it be shyness, modesty, and all that? Jove! he'd never thought of that, never looked at it in that light. Could it be possible that Miss Lambert had refused him because she did not feel herself up to the mark--didn't think herself equal to the position which he had proposed to her to occupy? The notion was a very pleasant one to Lord Ticehurst; it gratified his vanity, and it gave him hope. It might come off after all! He had not had much experience of women--not of that sort, at least--and it was impossible to make them out; there was never any knowing what to do with them. After all, perhaps, she only wanted a little more pressing; he certainly had nipped off rather sharp, without asking her to explain, or anything of that kind. He supposed that was what fellows usually did,--asked the women "Why," and all that sort of thing. "Declined the honour," she said; perhaps if he had given her the chance she would not have declined it a second time. He would give her the chance; he would go over again to what's-a-name, old Belwether's place, and tell Miss Lambert that he really meant it, and that--
As the thought of "what's-a-name, old Belwether's place," passed through Lord Ticehurst's mind, simultaneously arose therein the very uncomfortable recollection of having seen Miles Challoner at the gate. The young nobleman's spirits, which had risen rapidly under the roseate influence of his hopes, sunk at once to zero when he remembered that Gilbert Lloyd had told him of the manner in which this man Challoner was making "strong running" for Miss Lambert, and bade him beware of him as a dangerous rival. Jove! that might account for her declining the honour, and all that. Of course it was a ridiculous thing to imagine any woman taking a fellow like Chaldecott--Challoner, or whatever they called him--before a man in his position; but one never knew, it was impossible to say; and--he did not know what the deuce to do one way or the other.
"Princes and women must not be contradicted," says the proverb. Young noblemen, or old noblemen for the matter of that, with health and wealth, are pretty much in the same category. For the first time in his life Lord Ticehurst found himself debarred from the fulfilment of a special wish, and he raged inwardly and chafed against his destiny. He could have cried from sheer spite and vexation; he stamped his foot in his rage, and once more startled the roans out of all propriety. He felt that he was morally "cornered;" he did not like to give up all idea of this girl, for whom he had a certain liking and a certain passion, and in the possession of whom he would have had the justification of that pride which was perhaps the most thoroughly developed of all the various component parts of his character. On the other hand, he dared not run the chance of a second rejection, as the news of it might get wind, and he might be made to appear ridiculous; and, like most of his order, Lord Ticehurst was more afraid of ridicule than of anything else. To be laughed at had always been looked on by him as the greatest possible infliction, for he knew that neither his position nor his wealth rendered him invulnerable to "chaff;" and he was sufficiently man of the world to feel that these advantages in themselves would tempt the aim and barb the arrows of the sharpshooters. He could not face it out, by Jove he couldn't! The mere thought of being bantered on the subject of his rejection by Miss Lambert gave an apoplectic hue to his lordship's cheeks, and brought large beads of perspiration on to his forehead.
"I couldn't stand it," he said half aloud, and forgetting the proximity of the serious groom. "Gad! I think I should go mad, and that kind of thing. Don't think I'll give old Gil the chance of having a crow over me just yet. He's sure to ask me how I got on, and all that, and I'd better hold it over for an hour or two. He's rather spiky in his chaff, I've noticed lately, Master Gil is; I don't know what's come to him!"
So, on further reflection, Lord Ticehurst struck off the road leading to Eastbourne, and turned back, tooling the roans along the St. Leonards parade, to the immense delight of the promenaders there assembled, and finally pulling up at the door of the principal hotel in Hastings. Here he alighted, and bidding his groom to bring the phaeton round at eight in the evening, entered the hotel, ordered an early dinner, and strolled out on to the parade.
A person in Lord Ticehurst's position and of Lord Ticehurst's habits is almost certain to find a number of acquaintances in every place of anything like pretension to fashion which he may visit; and his lordship had not lounged up the promenade for more than a dozen paces ere his arrival was known to as many persons. Old Lady Spills, who was always seated at the bow-window of her lodgings with a powerful opera-glass, marked the young nobleman's arrival at the hotel, and immediately called to her granddaughter, then resident with her, to get her hat and accompany her on the parade as quickly as possible. "Not that it's of any use," the old lady remarked to herself; "for Julia is as stupid as an owl, and not likely to be attractive even to the most innocent of youths, much less to a young man like this, who is, no doubt, perfectly able to take care of himself." The Duke of Doncaster, a melancholy old man, in a crumpled wig and dyed whiskers, wearing the bell-hat, large-checked neckerchief, and cutaway green coat of the past generation, was driving his team up and down the parade, solemnly and methodically as was his usual afternoon practice, and he recognised Lord Ticehurst's presence by jerking his whip-elbow into the air in true coachman-like fashion. The sisters Lavrock, of the Scandinavian Opera and the nobility's concerts--brave little women, who in the off-season went round to the different watering-places, and made a good deal of money by giving a little musical entertainment--blushed and giggled in great delight as his good-natured lordship stopped them on the promenade, and inquired with unaffected interest after their well-doing. That eminent landscape-painter Scumble, R.A., who had often met Lord Ticehurst at Carabas House, over which mansion he seemed to have the right of free warren, happened to be staying at Hastings, partly for the sake of studying marine effects, partly for the purpose of pacifying Mrs. Scumble, who had but a dull time of it in London; and he tore off his wideawake as he met Lord Ticehurst's eye, and pretended to have nothing to do with Mrs. Scumble, who at that moment was a little way off, placidly bargaining for a shell pincushion. Lastly, Bobby Maitland--who had come ashore for two days from Mr. Stackborough's yacht, with the view of meeting his solicitor, and settling pecuniary matters during his absence--Bobby Maitland, looking over the blind of the coffee-room of the Marine Hotel, along which blind he had been thoughtfully rubbing his nose, spied his lordship, and announced his discovery to his friend Stackborough in these flattering terms: "By Jove, Haystacks, old man, here's that ass Ticehurst!"
"Haystacks" and "old man" were both terms of endearment and familiarity. Mr. Stackborough was about three-and-twenty, very rich, very foolish, and with an irrepressible yearning for what he called "high society." He had chambers in the Albany, splendid horses, a capital yacht, and more clothes than any other man in London. He was always extensively got-up, and never looked like a gentleman. Bobby Maitland, who lived with him and on him, could influence him on everything except his wardrobe--in that matter he always would have his own way. On the present occasion he was elaborately appareled in maritime fashion, dark-blue jacket with gilt buttons, very open white waistcoat, flap shirt-collar, trousers tight to the knee, then loose and flapping, black oilskin-hat with blue ribbon. Mr. Stackborough generally suited his language as far as possible to his style of costume. When that was horsey he talked turf, now he talked sea; consequently he said--
"Ticehurst, eh? Where does he hail from?"
"How the deuce should I know!" replied Bobby. "He's only just come in sight."
"T'other craft in company, of course?" suggested Mr. Stackborough. "He's always under convoy, his is! T'other craft's close by, I suppose, or at all events in the offing." And Mr. Stackborough peered from under his hand at his friend as though scanning the horizon.
"Look here, Haystacks, old man!" said Bobby Maitland thoughtfully; "you must moderate your transports, you must indeed. There's too much of this bold-smuggler business about you--a deal too much. I daresay it's a kind of gaff that takes with some people, but it don't with me, and so you may as well drop it. It isn't good style either; so drop it, old flick, and tell me in the Queen's English what you mean."
Mr. Stackborough wriggled uneasily in the maritime suit and blushed. "All right," he said after a minute's pause, "I'll take care. Thank you for telling me, Bobby. What I meant to say was, wasn't Lloyd there? He's always with his, you know."
"O, I understand now! No; Ticehurst seems to be by himself for a wonder. No doubt Lloyd's close at hand, though; he never lets my lord go far without him."
"Shall we 'bout ship and--I mean, shall we go out and speak to him?" asked Mr. Stackborough. Itwasso difficult to resist the influence of the maritime garments.
"Well, yes; there's no harm," said Bobby, knowing his young friend was dying to speak to and be seen speaking to a recognised "swell."
So Mr. Stackborough put on the glazed hat with the blue ribbon, and they strolled into the street. Now, though Lord Ticehurst did not much affect Bobby Maitland, and had a great contempt for Mr. Stackborough, he had such a horror of being alone and being thrown on his own resources for amusement, that, as soon as he saw these gentlemen approaching, he brightened up, and received them with a warmth which completely captivated Mr. Stackborough. Bobby Maitland was older and less enthusiastic. He disliked Ticehurst; and as he knew there was nothing to be got out of his lordship, he always spoke to him with charming frankness.
"We could scarcely believe it was you, Etchingham," said he, after the ordinary salutations had been exchanged.
"O, ah!" replied his lordship, "didn't expect to find me in this place, eh?"
"Well, no, perhaps one wouldn't have thought of finding you here. Nothing going on that you can understand--horses, I mean, and that kind of thing. But that was not what I meant."
"What did you mean, then?" asked his lordship somewhat crossly, for he understood and appreciated the sneer.
"Well, we didn't think you were ever let out without your dry-nurse--Lloyd, don't you know? Don't be angry, old fellow, it's only my chaff!"
"It's a deuced bad style of chaff," said Lord Ticehurst, who had grown very white, and whose lips trembled as he spoke,--"a deuced bad style of chaff; and I'll trouble you not to try it on me, Mr. Maitland!"
"Mr. Maitland! Come, that be hanged!" said Bobby, who saw that he had gone a little too far. "I'm very sorry if I've offended you, Etchingham, and I apologise. I can't say more."
The good-natured young man accepted the apology at once, and the three walked on together. Lord Ticehurst, then explaining that he was only in the town for a few hours, and that he had ordered a solitary dinner at the Queen's Hotel, was easily persuaded to let Mr. Stackborough (who was too delighted to fetch and carry for a lord) go and countermand it, while his lordship agreed to dine with his new-found acquaintances at the Marine. So, to the intense delight of Mr. Stackborough, they strolled up and down the parade, listening to the band, looking after the pretty women, and criticising the horses. "Haystacks" conversation became almost unintelligible during this walk; for Lord Ticehurst being eminently horsey, and the talk running on the breeding and look of horses, Mr. Stackborough would, under ordinary circumstances, have turned on the turf tap, and drawn his idioms from the stable; but the maritime clothes still from time to time asserted their influence, and the result was that the unfortunate youth got into a series of linguistic knots which he could not untie, and with which no one could assist him.
The dinner at the Marine was a success. Boffham, who keeps the hotel, had beenchefto Count Krammetsvogel, of the Hanoverian embassy, in former days, and had turned out many excellent official dinners, of which Lord Ticehurst's father had partaken. When he heard that the young lord was to be a guest of one of his guests, Boffham went himself to the kitchen, and showed that neither Time nor the gout had robbed his hand of its cunning. The wines too--notably some Chateau Yquem and some Steinberger Cabinet, which had been bought by Boffham out of the Krammetsvogel cellar when the count was recalled--were delicious; so delicious, that many bottles were drunk, and the hearts of the drinkers were warmed, and their tongues loosened. Something which Bobby Maitland had said to him when they first met that day had stuck in Lord Ticehurst's throat. He had tried to swallow it, but the attempt had been unsuccessful. Under the influence of the wine he felt he must mention it--he could see no reason why he should not.
"Bobby!" he said, as they were sipping their claret, "my horses will be round in a minute; but I want to say two words to you before I go.--Don't you move, Mr. Stacks," Stackborough made a kind of blundering attempt to rise,--"don't you move, there's nothing secret or private,"--here Lord Ticehurst looked long and earnestly at the wick of the candle close by him, then proceeded--"or at least; if there is, you're far too good a fellow, Stacks, to--to--you know what I mean.--So do you, Bobby."
"All right, Etchingham, old boy, I know," said Mr. Maitland "What do you want to say?" Mr. Maitland had to repeat his question, Lord Ticehurst having again become absorbed in the contemplation of the candle. "What do you want to say?"
"What do I want to say?" said his lordship, after a pause--"ah, that's just it! I wonder--O, I know! Don't you know when you folks first met me to-day, you said something, Bobby--something about Lloyd?"
"Yes, I recollect--what then?"
"You asked me where my nurse was, or something of that sort, didn't you?"
"I think I did."
"Ah! just tell me, like a good fellow--is that the way men talk about me and Lloyd?"
"What way?"
"Do they say that he--that I--that he's like what you said, my nurse?"
"They say you daren't call your soul your own without his leave. That you never move hand or foot without him; some say he washes you and parts your hair; but that's their way of putting it. What they mean is, that he's your master, and you're his most obedient."
"And do you think Lloyd knows they say this?"
"Knows they say it!" repeated Bobby Maitland, with a loud vinous laugh; "knows they say it! why, he says it himself; boasts of it!"
"The deuce he does!" said Lord Ticehurst, rising with an unsteady gait. "That must be stopped! There are some things that a man can stand; and there are some things he----My carriage. Thank you!--Good-night, Mr. Stacks; very glad to have looked you up.--Good-night, Bobby; see you at Doncaster, I suppose? No! well, then--never mind.--Right, Martin!" and his lordship dashed off at a tremendous pace, while the serious groom, who had seen his master reel on the phaeton-step, looked more serious than ever as he jumped up behind.
When the other two gentlemen returned to their room, Mr. Stackborough said, "He didn't half like what you said about Lloyd just now. Shouldn't wonder if there was a row when he gets home."
"Serve Master Gil deuced well right," said Maitland; "I've owed him one for a long time, and now I think I've paid him. Teach him to give himself airs over me next time we meet in the ring."
"Devilish pleasant, gentlemanly fellow is Etchinghurst," said Mr. Stackborough, steadying himself by holding on to the table.
Bobby Maitland regarded him with a smile. "His name is Etchingham, not Etchinghurst; but you're not sufficiently intimate with him to call him anything but Lord Ticehurst. Haystacks, dear old boy, you've had too much wine; have a tumbler of soda, plain, and go to bed."
There was no reason for the serious groom's apprehensions, so far as the safety of his person was concerned. It is a received axiom that the effects of intoxication are increased when gentlemen labouring under them are exposed to the influence of the air; and the groom's perturbation was probably based upon this theory. He had not, however, probably made allowance for the fact--which possibly had never come within his ken--that when the mind is actively at work it becomes an admirable counterirritant to the influence of wine. That feeble nonsense of the hiccupping toper of the past generation relative to the drowning of dull Care in bowls was as void of reason as of rhythm. That men in good spirits will have those spirits made livelier by good drink in good company is intelligible enough; but dull Care--whatever he may have suffered in the three-bottle days--declines to be drowned or in any way got rid of by such a quantity of liquor as is at the present time drank in society. The confirmation of his suspicions about Gilbert Lloyd, which Bobby Maitland had communicated with so much charming frankness to Lord Ticehurst, had had a singularly sobering influence on the young nobleman. The anger arising in his heart seemed to have chased away the fumes which had been obscuring his brain; and after he had been five minutes on the road he was in as good condition as he ever was--which, perhaps, is not saying much--to think the matter calmly through. It was a lovely night; the roans, knowing they were on their homeward journey, stepped out splendidly and refrained from indulging in any of the capers and antics which had characterised their morning's performance; and Lord Ticehurst, getting them well in hand, settled himself down to think over all he had heard, and to endeavour to arrive at some definite conclusion before the end of his drive.
Was it what we have no adequate expression for, but what the French call thevin triste, that was exercising its malign influence over the young man? Had his "potations pottle deep" but resulted in stirring up dull Care instead of drowning him? Had Boffham's Chateau Yquem and Steinberger Cabinet an effect exactly opposite to that of the waters of Lethe? Certain it is that as Lord Ticehurst rolled rapidly homewards his memory, which very seldom troubled him, was actively at work, and his reflections were of anything but a pleasant character.
So they said that he was a mere child in Gilbert Lloyd's hands, did they?--that he dare not call his soul his own; that he had no will, no opinion,--chaffed, and said Lloyd was his dry-nurse, did they? Pleasant that, by Jove!--to have things like that said about you by fellows to whom you had always been civil and polite, and all that kind of thing--more than that, hospitable, and letting them stand in with good things, and putting them on to everything you knew. And they went about and said this--not before your face, of course; they would not do that; but thought it before your face, and went about and said it as soon as your back was turned. Made you their laughing-stock and their butt; poked their fun at you all the time they were eating your dinners, and made game of you while they borrowed your money. It was d--d unfriendly and blackguard conduct; that's what it was. And Bobby Maitland was as bad as any of them--worse, for he would never have heard of it but for him. They all thought he was a fool, and Bobby must have thought so too, sneering about him and Gilbert Lloyd, and pretending to think he would not notice it. He would let them see pretty sharp he was not such a fool as they took him for; let them see he knew how they laughed at and chaffed him. Next time any of them wanted a fifty for a fortnight, that would be the time. They should laugh the wrong side of their mouths then, he would take care. Called himself a gentleman too, did Bobby Maitland, and gave himself airs because he was a peer's son. Why, damme, that other chap, that poor fellow Haystacks, or whatever his name was, with all his ridiculous nonsense about his get-up and all that, he was more of a gentleman than Bobby Maitland. He looked quite queer and uncomfortable, Haystacks did, when Maitland was going on all that chaff about the nurse.
About the nurse? That riled him more than anything else. "How was it he was let out without his nurse?" That's what Maitland had said. As he thought of that speech Lord Ticehurst kicked out against the splashboard in front of him, startled the roans into a gallop, and woke the groom from an elysian dream of eating boiled beans and bacon in the back-parlour of a public-house which was his own. And when he had asked if Gilbert knew about the chaff that was going on, Maitland said he did, and, more than that, had started it and laughed at it himself. Could that be true? He could scarcely think that; he had been doosid kind to old Gil, and doosid fond of him, and done all sorts of things for him one way or the other, and he did not believe old Gil would go against him in that way. Fellows are always talking about ingratitude and that kind of thing, but he did not think anyone would be such a thorough-paced duffer as to go in against a fellow who had shown him nothing but kindness ever since he had known him. Ever since he had known him? Well, that was not so long ago, when he came to think about it, but it seemed like his whole life. He thought with an odd kind of incredulous wonder on that portion of his life anterior to his acquaintance with Gilbert Lloyd. The Plater-Dobbsrégimeseemed like a dream. He was a vulgar old cad, the Plater, but he would not have played double, he would not have allowed any of the fellows to chaff. No fellows had ever been allowed to chaff him, even at Eton--Eton, hey presto! At that reminiscence the clouds rolled away, and scenes of bygone time and the actors in them, unthought of for years, rose before the young man's mind. Some of those fellows who had been with him at Eton, and were now doing so well and making such stir in the world--Brackenbury, who had made such a hit in the House, and who, everybody said, would be A1 some of these days; and Graves, who had written a devilish clever book about something; and Hammond, who was under-secretary in one of those office-places down at Whitehall, and who the newspapers said was a rising man, and all that. Lord! he recollected when he first went to Eton, his old governor took him, and a crowd there was when they buried his governor in the family-vault at Etchingham! He recollected Lord Tantallon the Premier standing at the foot of the grave after the service, and looking in, with the tears running down his face. No end of official swells came down to see the last of their old colleague. He recollected seeing the great black-marble top of the tomb, which had been taken off, lying on its side among the weeds; and he remembered the smell of the newly-turned earth, and the trodden turf, and he could see just as plainly as on the day itself the men from the London newspapers bending over to read the inscription on the coffin. Poor old governor! he was a clever fellow, and was awfully respectable and respected. He would not think much of the life his son was leading, mixed up with horses and betting-people and jockeys, and all that kind of thing. Whew! it could not be helped, he supposed. It was too late to change it. Steady there! Arrived!
When Lord Ticehurst entered the rooms in the hotel which he occupied conjointly with Gilbert Lloyd, he found that gentleman asleep on the sofa, with a decanter of brandy on a small table by his side. The decanter was half-empty; and when Gilbert, awaking at the noise made by his friend's arrival, turned round, his face, especially round the eyes, had a strained, flushed look, and his voice, when he began to speak, was rather thick and husky.
"Hallo!" he said, raising himself on his elbow, and shading his eyes with his other hand, "you've got back!"
"Yes," replied his lordship; "here I am!"
"Perhaps the next time you are going to stop out to dinner you will have the goodness to say so."
"Don't be cross, old man; you knew I was going, fast enough."
"I knew you were going out to luncheon, but there was nothing said about dinner, I believe; and as to being cross, it's enough to make a fellow savage, having had to cool his heels about here for an hour and a half, waiting dinner for a man who never came; and then to sit down to a lot of stuff cooked to rags, half cold, and quite uneatable."
"Sorry for that, Gil," said Lord Ticehurst with unimpaired good-humour; "very sorry, but you should not have waited."
"O, I like that!" said Lloyd; "and suppose your lordship had not had your dinner, and had come in when I had half-finished mine, you would have been pleased, wouldn't you?"
"I don't suppose 'my lordship,' as you call me, would have cared one straw about it. What a rum fellow you are, Gil! What's the matter with you to-night, that you are going on in this way?"
"Going on in what way? I merely suggested that it would have been pleasanter if you had said you would not be back to dinner, and--"
"But I didn't know that I should not. I had no intention of stopping when I went away. Can't you understand?"
"O yes, I understand!Chapeau bas, chapeau bas!However, that's no matter now. I ought to have known that the young lady would suggest your stopping there--that the old Belwethers would be delighted to receive a person of your lordship's quality, and that--"
"There, you may drop that silliness as soon as you like. It's very funny, I daresay; but it's all thrown away, because I didn't stop at Hardriggs after all."
"The deuce you didn't! Why, where did you dine, then?"
"At the hotel at Hastings, with Bobby Maitland and that young fellow he's always about with now--'Haystacks.'"
"I know," growled Gilbert. He hated Maitland, and half-despised him, as men do their unsuccessful rivals. "What on earth made you dine with them?"
"Well, I don't know," said the earl, blushing a little, in spite of vigorous attempts to prevent it and look unconcerned. "I--I had stopped later there than I intended at Hardriggs, and I thought you would have dined, and so I put up at Hastings, and those fellows saw me and asked me to dinner."
"And you went, deuced Samaritan-like and benevolent, and all that, I declare! That fellow Stackborough will be set up for life; there will be no holding him, now that he has once dined in company with a real live earl."
"Well, I don't know; Mr. Stackborough seemed to me to behave like a gentleman."
"O yes; but you like a fellow who bows down before you, Etchingham, we all know that; and it's natural enough. However, that's neither here nor there. What about the object of your visit to Hardriggs? You saw the young lady?"
"Yes, I saw her."
"And you carried out your intention?"
"What intention?" asked Lord Ticehurst, summoning up courage, and looking his friend full in the face. And then Gilbert knew for certain, what he had decidedly anticipated, that Lord Ticehurst had been rejected by Gertrude.
"What intention?" he replied, with a sneer already dawning on his face; "why, the intention of proposing to Miss--what does she call herself?--Miss Lambert."
"Yes," said Lord Ticehurst quietly, "I carried out that intention."
"Well, and we are to ring the joy-bells, and to roast the whole ox, and set the barrels of ale flowing, and order the bishop to be in readiness at St. George's, and select the new carriages, and have Etchingham new furnished. And when are we to do all this?"
"Not just now, at all events," said Lord Ticehurst. "First catch your hare, don't you know?" and his lordship tried to look knowing--a process in which he failed sublimely.
"Why, you don't mean to say that--"
"I mean to say that I proposed to Miss Lambert--you know her name fast enough--and she refused me."
"Refused you!" screamed Gilbert with admirably-assumed astonishment; "refused you,--the opera-singer, the tragedy-queen, the Princess Do Re has refused my lord with his thousands and his tens of thousands! The world is coming to an end! People will next question the value of an hereditary legislature. You astound me!"
"I'll tell you what, Lloyd," said Lord Ticehurst sulkily, "I wish you to drop that style of chaff; I don't see the fun of it."
"You never saw the fun of anything, Etchingham; it is not yourmétier; Providence has ordained otherwise. It's for us poor devils to see the fun that you big swells make for us."
Rage swelled within Lord Ticehurst's heart as he listened to these words, which were so eminently corroborative of what Bobby Maitland had said to him, and of what he had thought to himself on his homeward drive. But he controlled himself, and said:
"Well, what I see or what I don't see don't matter much just now. Perhaps I see more than some people think I do; more than I give tongue about, that's certain. However, I don't care about being chaffed on that subject, and so please drop it."
"Poor old boy!" said Lloyd, with an elaborate affectation of compassion; "of course he's very sore, that's natural enough; and of course it comes much harder to a fellow in his position, who thinks that he has only to lie under the wall and the ripe cherries will tumble into his mouth, to find that they sometimes hang on the stalk and won't tumble. It puts me in mind of the little stories in one syllable that we used to learn at school. 'There was once a small boy, and he cried for the moon, and when--'"
"D--n it, sir, will you stop?" cried Lord Ticehurst, angered beyond all patience. "Look here, Lloyd, you and I have been friends for a long time; but if you go on in this way I shall--"
"What?" interrupted Gilbert, turning quickly on him.
"Cut the whole concern, stock, lock, and barrel," said his lordship, "and part from you for ever."
The two men stood confronting each other; Lord Ticehurst flushed and heated, Lloyd wonderfully pale and calm, and only betraying agitation in the twitchings of the muscles of his mouth. He was the first to speak.
"Part from me for ever, eh?" he said in slow deliberate tones, each word clipping out from between his thin tight lips. "O no, you wouldn't do that! You are not very wise, Lord Ticehurst, but you would not be such a fool as to quarrel with or part from the man who has made you what you are. Ah, you may stare and pretend to be astonished, but I repeat, who has made you what you are. And you need not come down upon me, as you are going to--I see it!--with the whole long story of your birth and position and status, and all the rest of it. I know all that fromDebrett; and still I stick to my text,--that I made you what you are! The time has come--you have brought it about, not I; I could have gone on for ever as we were--but the time has come for plain speaking; and I say that whatever you are, and whatever you may be thought of in the world, you owe to me, to me; without whom you would have remained the unformed cub you were when I found you in the hands of that old duffer, Plater Dobbs!"
The prospect of a row with his pupil--not a separation, of course, but a brisk breeze to freshen up the tamely-flowing current of their ordinary life--had often occurred to Gilbert Lloyd. He had thought over calmly what should be his conduct under such circumstances, and he had determined upon using the strongest possible "bounce," and acting in the most offensive and most truculent manner. His remembrance of Lord Ticehurst's behaviour in the quarrel with the Frenchman, M. de Prailles, at Baden, prompted him to this line of action, and he found it was the correct one. Lord Ticehurst did not knock him down, or fling a chair at him, or take any other prompt and decisive step. His cheek flushed angrily, certainly, but he only said:
"Major Dobbs might have been a duffer, as you say he was, but at all events he aid not pitch into people who were kind to him, didn't blackguard them before their faces, as some people do, or what's worse, make game of them behind their backs."
He laid such stress on this last sentence that Gilbert Lloyd looked hard at him, and said, "Make game of you behind your back! What do you mean by that?"
"What I say," said Lord Ticehurst; "chaffin' about my not being able to do anything without asking you, and you being my dry-nurse, and all that kind of thing!"
"Ah, ha!" said Gilbert Lloyd; "you haven't dined with our friend Bobby Maitland for nothing! That's his stab, I'll swear. Now look here, Ticehurst, you've talked about our parting, and I never let a man threaten me twice. So part we will. We must wait over Doncaster, because there are some things coming off there in which we are mutually interested; but after that I'll square up all the accounts and hand over everything to you."
He looked bard at his pupil as he said these words, expecting that the announcement would evoke a burst of protestations and disavowals. But Lord Ticehurst merely said "Very well; all right;" and took up his candle and left the room.
Lord Sandilands was looking and feeling ill and feeble, and was mainly occupied, as he hobbled across the not-magnificently-proportioned drawing-room of that most desirable lodging-house, with an unrivalled view of the Esplanade, in so putting down and moving his feet as to cause himself the least possible pain, when he came, leaning on the arm of his housekeeper, to meet Mrs. Bloxam and Miss Lambert. But he was a man of too quick perception at all times, and his mind had been dwelling of late with so much anxiety upon Gertrude and her interests, that he was additionally keen in remarking every incident in which she was concerned. As he put out his disengaged hand and took Gertrude's, he glanced from her face to that of the housekeeper, and back to hers again, and saw that each recognised the other.
"You know Mrs. Bush?" he asked, still holding Gertrude's hand in one of his, still leaning with the other on Mrs. Bush's arm.
"Mrs. Bush and I have met before," Gertrude answered calmly; "but she does not know my stage name. I am a singer, Mrs. Bush," she added; "and my stage name is Lambert."
"O, indeed, ma'am!" said Mrs. Bush, in a singularly unsympathetic voice, and with an expression which said pretty plainly that she did not think it signified much what the speaker called herself.--"Shall I put your lordship in the chair near the window?"
"Yes, yes," said Lord Sandilands testily; and then he added, with the perversity of age and illness, "and where did you know Miss Keith, Mrs. Bush?" He seated himself as he spoke, drew the skirts of his gray dressing-gown over his knees, and again looked from one to the other. Mrs. Bloxam, to whom the scene had absolutely no meaning, stood by in silence. Gertrude was very calm, very pale, and her eyes shone with a disdainful, defiant light, as they had shone on the fatal day of which this meeting so vividly reminded her. Mrs. Bush smiled, a dubious kind of smile, and rubbed her hands together very slowly and deliberately, as she answered:
"If you please, my lord, I didn't never know a Miss Keith. It were when the young lady was Mrs. Lloyd as she come to my house at Brighton."
"When the young lady was Mrs. Lloyd!" repeated Lord Sandilands in astonishment, and now including Mrs. Bloxam, who looked extremely embarrassed and uncomfortable in the searching gaze he directed towards the housekeeper and Gertrude. "What does this mean?"
"I will explain it to you," said Gertrude firmly but very gently, and bending over him as she spoke; "but there is no occasion to detain Mrs. Bush." The tone and manner of her words were tantamount to a dismissal, and so Mrs. Bush received them. She immediately retreated to the door, with an assumption of not feeling the smallest curiosity concerning the lady with whom she was thus unexpectedly brought into contact, and left the room, murmuring an assurance that she should be within call when his lordship might want her. A few moments' pause followed her departure. The astonishment and vague uneasiness with which Lord Sandilands had heard what Mrs. Bush had said kept him silent, while Gertrude was agitated and puzzled--the first by the imminent danger of discovery of her carefully-kept secret, and the second by hearing Lord Sandilands allude to her as "Miss Keith." When she thought over this strange and critical incident in her life afterwards, it seemed to her that something like a perception of the truth about to be imparted to her came into her mind as Lord Sandilands spoke. Mrs. Bloxam experienced a sensation unpleasantly akin to threatened fainting. What was coming? Must all indeed be told? Must her conduct be put in its true light before both Gertrude and Lord Sandilands? Could she not escape either of the extremes which, in her mental map of the straits in which she found herself, she had laid down? But she was a strong woman by nature, and a quiet, self-repressed woman by habit, and in the few moments' interval of silence she did not faint, but sat down a little behind Lord Sandilands, and with her face turned away from the light. As for the old nobleman himself, the mere shock of the dim suspicion, the vague possibility which suggested itself, shook his composure severely, through all the restraint which his natural manliness and the acquired impassiveness of good breeding imposed. Gertrude was the first to speak. She stood in her former attitude, slightly leaning over him, and he sat, his head back against the chair, and his keen, gray, anxious eyes raised to her handsome, haughty face.
"You sent for me, my dear lord, my good friend," she said,--and there was a tone in the rich, sweet voice which the old man had never heard in it before, and in which his ear caught and carried to his heart the echo of one long silent and almost forgotten,--"and I have come; in the first place to see you, to know how you are, and to satisfy myself that this illness has had nothing alarming in it. In the second place, that I may hear all you mean to say to me; I know about what,"--her eyes drooped and her colour rose--"Mrs. Bloxam has told me; she has fully explained all your kindness, all your goodness and generosity to me. Will you tell me all you intended to say to me, and let me say what I meant to say to you, just as if Mrs. Bush had never called me by that strange name in your hearing, and then I will explain all." The lustrous earnestness of her face rendered it far more beautiful than Lord Sandilands had ever before seen it. Her mother had never looked at him with that purposeful expression, with that look which told of sorrow and knowledge, and the will and resolution to live them down.
"I will do anything you wish, my dear," said the old nobleman; and it was remarkable that he discarded in that moment all the measured courtesy a manner which he had hitherto sedulously preserved, and adopted in its stead the deep and warm interest, the partial judgment, the protecting tone of his true relationship to her. "Sit here beside me, and listen. I have some painful things to say, but they will soon be said; and I hope--I hope happy days are in store for you;" but his face was clouded, and doubt, even dread, expressed itself in his voice. Gertrude did not exactly obey him. Instead of taking a seat, she placed herself on her knees beside his chair; and in this attitude she listened to his words.
"I know how it is with you and Miles Challoner, my dear, and Miles is dearer to me than any person in the world except one,--and that one is you."
"I!" said Gertrude, amazed. "I dearer to you than Miles Challoner, your old friend's child!"
"Yes," he said, with a faint smile, "for you are my own child, Gertrude; that is what I sent for you to tell you, and I want to make you happy if I can." So saying, the old man took her bent head between his hands, and kissed her. Gertrude did not evince any violent emotion--she turned extremely pale, and her eyes filled with tears; but she did not say anything for a little while, and she afterwards wondered at the quietness with which the revelation was made and received. She was not even certain that she had been very much surprised. Mrs. Bloxam rose, opened the window, stepped out upon the balcony, and carefully closed the window behind her. During a considerable time she might have been observed by the numerous promenaders on the Esplanade, leaning over the railing, which was more ornamental than solid, in an attitude of profound abstraction. By those within the room her very existence was forgotten until, in the course of their mutual interrogation, her name came to be mentioned. Still kneeling beside him, but now with her head resting against his breast, and one long thin white hand laid tenderly upon the bright masses of her chestnut hair, Gertrude heard from her father the story of her mother's brief happy life and early death;--and the sternest might have forgiven the old man the unintentional, deception which was self-delusion, which made him tell his daughter how only that early death had prevented his making Gertrude Gautier his wife. For the first time he realised now in the keenness of his longing, in the misery of his dreaded powerlessness to secure the happiness of his child, the full extent of the injury inflicted upon her by her illegitimate birth.
"I know," he said, "that Miles loves you, and I think you love him, and I know you would be happy. I have lived long enough in the world, and seen enough of it, to know how rarely one can say that with common sense and justice of any two human beings. Tell me, Gertrude, why it is that you have refused Miles,--why it is that you seem determined not to let me smooth away all obstacles to your marrying him?"
The conversation had lasted long, and had embraced many subjects, before it reached this point. Gertrude had undergone much and varying emotion, but she had not lost her calmness, partly because of her exceptional strength of mind and body, and partly because she never suffered herself to forget the danger of over-excitement to Lord Sandilands. She had listened quietly to the story of her mother (the idea of actually learning about her own parentage, and being able to realise it, was quite new to her--and abstract sentiment was not in Gertrude's way), and had rendered to it the tribute of silent tears. She had heard her father tell how he had first recognised her at Lady Carabas' concert, and how he had felt the strong instinctive interest in which he had never believed, and which he had never practically experimented in, arise at the sight of her; how he had found, first with misgiving, and afterwards with increasing pleasure, ratified and approved by his conscience because of his knowledge of Miles Challoner's tastes and character, that his young friend and companion was attached to her. She had heard him tell how he had watched the ill-success of Lord Ticehurst's suit with pleasure, and how he had won Miles to confide to him his hopes and plans, and encouraged him to hope for success, and then had been induced by her refusal of Miles and his belief that that refusal was dictated by disinterested regard for Challoner's worldly interests, and in no degree by her own feelings, to take the resolution of telling her all the truth--upon which resolution he was now acting.
So far Gertrude had been wonderfully composed. Her father had said to her all he had urged with himself, when he had been first assailed by misgivings that his old friend would have resented his endeavouring to bring about a marriage between Miles and a woman to whom the disadvantage of illegitimate birth attached; and she had assented, adding that while she only knew herself utterly obscure, she had felt and acted upon the sense of her own inferiority. The conversation had strayed away from Gertrude's early life--the father met his acknowledged daughter for the first time as a woman, and they made haste to speak of present great interests. Mrs. Bloxam might have been quite easy in her mind about the amount of notice her share in any of the transactions of the past would be likely to excite. But now, when Lord Sandilands pleaded earnestly the cause of Miles Challoner, and in arguing it argued in favour of the weakness of Gertrude's own heart, her fortitude gave way, and a full and overwhelming knowledge of the bitterness of her fate rushed in upon her soul. The veil fell from her eyes; she knew herself for the living lie she was; she realised that the unjustifiable compact she had made with her husband was a criminal, an accursed convention, bearing more and more fruit of bitterness and shame and punishment, as her father unfolded the scheme of a bright and happy future which he had formed for her.
"If he had been any other than Miles Challoner," she had said to Mrs. Bloxam, she would have married him, would have incurred the risk for rank and money--or she had thought so, had really believed it of herself. What had possessed her with such an idea? What had made her contemplate in herself a creature so lost, so utterly, coldly wicked? It was so long since she had permitted herself to think of her real position; she had deliberately blinded, voluntarily stultified her mind for so long, that she had ceased to feel that she was playing a part as fictitious off, as any she performed on the stage. But now, as her father's voice went on, speaking lovingly, hopefully, telling her how conventionalities should be disregarded and wealth supplied in her interests; telling her she need have no fear in the case of such a man as Miles--had he not known him all his life?--of any late regret or after reproach; now the tide of anguish rushed over her, and with choking sobs she implored him to desist.
"Don't, don't!" she said. "You don't know--O my God!--you don't know--and how shall I ever tell you? There is another reason, ten thousand times stronger; all the others I gave were only pretences, anything to keep him from suspecting, from finding out the truth; there is a reason which makes it altogether impossible."
"Another reason! What is it? Tell me at once--tell me," said Lord Sandilands; and he raised himself in his chair, and held her by the shoulders at arms' length from him. Dread, suspicion, pain were in his face; and under the influence of strong emotion, which reflected itself in her features, the father and daughter, with all the difference of colouring and of form, were wonderfully like each other.
"I will tell you," she said; but she shut her eyes, and then hid them with her hand while she spoke, shrinking from his gaze. "I will tell you. I am not free to be Miles Challoner's wife. I am married to another man."
"Married! You married?"
"Yes," she said, "I am married. Your housekeeper knows me as a married woman. The name she called me by is my real name. You know the man who is my husband, unhappy wretch that I am!"
"Who is he?" said Lord Sandilands hoarsely, his nerveless hands falling from her shoulders as he spoke. She looked at him, was alarmed at the paleness of his face, and rose hurriedly from her knees.
"You are ill," she said. "I will go--" But he caught her dress, and held it.
"Tell me who he is."
"Gilbert Lloyd!"
Gertrude was horrified at the effect which the communication she had made to her father had upon him. He had set his heart strongly indeed upon her marriage with Miles Challoner, she thought, when the frustration of the project had the power to plunge him into a state of prostration and misery. As for herself, the alarm she experienced, and the great excitement she had undergone in the revelation made to her by her father, the agony of mind she had suffered in the desperate necessity for avowing the truth, were quickly succeeded by such physical exhaustion as she had never before felt. This effect of mental excitement was largely assisted by the weakness still remaining after her illness, and was so complete and irresistible, that when she had seen the doctor hurriedly summoned to Lord Sandilands by Mrs. Bloxam's orders--that lady's meditations on the balcony had been terminated by Gertrude's cry for help--and learned that the patient was not in danger, but must be kept absolutely quiet, she yielded to it at once.
Not a word was said by Mrs. Bloxam to Gertrude concerning the disclosure made by Lord Sandilands. In the confusion and distress which ensued on the sudden attack of violent pain with which her father was seized, Gertrude lost sight of time and place, and thought of nothing but him so long as she was able to think of anything. Little more than an hour had elapsed since Lord Sandilands had told her the secret of his life, and she was speaking of him freely to Mrs. Bloxam as her father, and the word hardly sounded strange. She could not return to Hardriggs; she was not able, even if she would have left Lord Sandilands. There was no danger of her seeing Miles if she remained at St. Leonards. Lord Sandilands had told her early in their interview that he had sent Miles up to town, and procured his absence until he should summon him back by promising to plead his cause in his absence. She and Mrs. Bloxam must remain--not in the house, indeed, but at the nearest hotel. She would send a message to that effect to Lady Belwether, and inform Mrs. Bush of her intention.
Mrs. Bush had not relaxed her suspicious reserve during all the bustle and confusion which had ensued on the sudden illness of Lord Sandilands. She had been brought into contact with Gertrude frequently as they went from room to room in search of remedies, and ultimately met by the old nobleman's bedside after the doctor's visit. Mrs. Bush did not indeed call Gertrude "Mrs. Lloyd" again, but she scrupulously addressed her as "Madam;" and there was an unpleasant, though not distinctly offensive, significance about her manner which convinced Gertrude that not an incident of the terrible time at Brighton had been forgotten by theci-devantlodging-house keeper, whose changed position had set her free from the necessity of obsequiousness.
Gertrude had taken a resolution on the subject of Mrs. Bush, on which she acted with characteristic decision, when at length her father was sleeping under the influence of opiates, and she and Mrs. Bloxam had agreed that their remaining at St. Leonards was inevitable. She asked Mrs. Bush to accompany her to the drawing-room, and then said to her at once:
"You are surprised to see me here, Mrs. Bush, no doubt; and as I understand from Lord Sandilands that he has great confidence in you, and values your services highly, I think it right to explain to you what may seem strange in the matter."
Mrs. Bush looked at the young lady a little more kindly than before, and muttered something about being much obliged, and hoping she should merit his lordship's good opinion. Gertrude continued:
"It will displease Lord Sandilands, to whom I am closely related, if the fact of my being married is talked about. I am separated from Mr. Lloyd, and it is customary for singers to retain their own names. Mine is Grace Lambert. If you desire to please his lordship, you may do so by keeping silence on this subject, by not telling anyone that you ever saw me at Brighton under another name."
With the shrewdness which most women of her class and calling possess by nature, and which the necessities of her struggling career as a lodging-housekeeper had developed, Mrs. Bush instantly perceived her own interest in this affair, and replied very civilly that she was sure she should never mention anything his lordship would wish concealed; and that she was not given to gossip, thank goodness! never had been when she had a house herself, and which her opinion had always been as lodgers' business was their own and not hers. Consequent, she had never said a word about the poor dear gentleman what had died so sudden,--at this point of her discourse Gertrude's jaded nerves thrilled again with pain,--although it had injured her house serious. With a last effort of self-command, Gertrude listened to her apparently unmoved, and dismissed her, with an intimation that she should return in the morning to take her place by Lord Sandilands. Mrs. Bush had both a talent and a taste for nursing invalids, and she established herself in the darkened room, there to watch the troubled sleeper, with cheerful alacrity. Her thoughts were busy with Gertrude, however, and with what she had said to her. "So she's his near relation, is she?" thus ran Mrs. Bush's cogitations. "Whatrelation now, I wonder? Lambert is not a family name on any side, and he called her Miss Keith too--and I'll be hanged if he knew she was married! I'm sure he didn't. There's something queer in all this; but it's not my affair. However, if his lordship asks me any questions, I'm not going to hold my tongue to him. Separated from Mr. Lloyd! I wonder was she ever really married to him? She looked like it, and spoke like it, though; a more respectable young woman in her ways never came to my place, for the little time she was in it. I wonder what she has left him for?--though in my belief it's a good job for her, and he's a bad lot."
The hours of the night passed over the heads of the father and the daughter unconsciously. With the morning came the renewed sense of something important and painful having taken place. On the preceding evening, Gertrude had entreated Mrs. Bloxam to refrain from questioning her. "I am too tired," she had said. "I cannot talk about it; let me rest now, and I will tell you everything in the morning." To this Mrs. Bloxam had gladly assented; she was naturally very anxious, and not a little curious; but anxiety and curiosity were both held in abeyance by the satisfaction she experienced in perceiving that the revelations which had been made had not seriously injured her position with Lord Sandilands or with Gertrude. The mutual recognition between Gertrude and Mrs. Bush had been unintelligible to her. That it had produced important results she could not doubt; but on the whole, she did not regret them. The acknowledgment of Gertrude's marriage might prevent future mischief, in which she (Mrs. Bloxam) might possibly be unpleasantly involved, and at present it was evident that, in the overwhelming agitation and surprise of the discovery, her conduct had been entirely forgotten or overlooked. That she might continue to occupy a position of such safe obscurity was, for herself, Mrs. Bloxam's dearest wish; and Mrs. Bloxam's wishes seldom extended, at all events with any animation, beyond herself.
Lord Sandilands awoke free from pain, but so weak and confused that it was some time before he could bring up the occurrences of yesterday, in their due order and weight of import, before his mind. He had received a shock from which his physical system could hardly be expected to recover; but the extent of the mental effect--the fear, the horror, the awakening of remorse, not yet to be softened into abiding and availing repentance--none but he could ever estimate. The past, the present, and the future alike menaced, alike tortured him: the dead friend, the sole sharer of whose confidence he was; the dead man's son, whom he loved almost as well as if he were of his own flesh and blood; the dead woman, whom he had deceived and betrayed (in the wholesome bitterness of his awakened feelings Lord Sandilands was hard upon himself, and ready to ignore the ignorance which had made her a facile victim); the dreadful combination of fate which had made the daughter whom he had neglected and disowned the wife of a man whose tremendous guilt her father alone of living creatures knew, and had thrown her in the path of that same guilty man's brother, to love him and be beloved by him. In so dire a distress was he; and this girl whom he loved with an anxious intensity which surprised himself, imprisoned in the hopeless meshes of the net in which his feet were involved. No wonder he found it hard, with all his natural courage, and all the acquired calmness of his caste, to marshal these facts in their proper order, and make head against the dismay they caused him. But this was no time for dismay. He had to act in a terrible emergency of his daughter's life, and to act, if indeed it were possible for any ingenuity or prudence to enable him to do so, so that the real truth of the emergency, the full extent of its terrible nature, should be known to himself alone, never suspected by her. The housekeeper came softly to the old nobleman's bedside while his mind was working busily at this problem, the most difficult which life had ever set him for solution; and seeing his eyes closed and his face quiet, believed him to be still sleeping, and withdrew gently.
By degrees, the facts and the necessities of the case arranged themselves somewhat in this order. Gertrude had told her father of her marriage, of the misery which had speedily resulted from it, and of the strange bargain made between her husband and herself. She knew Lloyd's worthlessness then, though she had spoken but vaguely of him as a gambler and a reckless, unprincipled man, not giving Lord Sandilands any reason to think she could regard him as capable of actual crime. The shock of the disclosure Gertrude had imputed simply to his horror of the clandestine nature of her marriage, and the moral blindness and deadness which had made the bargain between her and Lloyd present itself as possible to their minds (the light of a true and pure love had shone on Gertrude now, and shown her the full turpitude of the transaction); his sudden seizure had prevented his hearing more than a brief, bare outline of the dreadful episode of his daughter's marriage. She knew nothing of the real, appalling truth; she was ignorant that the man she had married was a criminal of the deepest dye, the secret of his crime in her father's hands, his own brother the object of her affections, and the only possible issue out of all this complication and misery one involving utter and eternal separation between her and Miles Challoner. If he and Gertrude ever met again, she must learn the truth; she must learn that Gilbert Lloyd was Geoffrey Challoner, and an additional weight of horror and anguish be added to the load of sorrow her unfortunate marriage--in which Lord Sandilands humbly and remorsefully recognised the consequence, the direct result, of his own sin--had laid upon her. If she could be prevented from ever knowing the worst? If he, invested with the authority and with the affection of a parent, could induce her to consent to an immediate separation from Miles Challoner, to a prompt removal from the possibility of seeing him, by strengthening her own views of the insuperable nature of the barrier between them? She would not, however, yield to Miles's prayer for their marriage; but that would not be sufficient for her safety: she must never see him more; she must be kept from the misery of learning the truth. How was this to be done? For some time Lord Sandilands found no answer to that question; but at last it suggested itself. Miles--yes, he would make an appeal to him; he would tell him all the truth--to him who knew that Lord Sandilands also possessed that other secret, which, to judge by its consequences, must be indeed a terrible one; and Miles would be merciful to this woman, who, though she had sinned by the false pretence under which she lived, was so much more sinned against; and, appearing to accept her decision, Miles would not ask to see her again. Yes, that would do; he was sure that would succeed. And then he would acknowledge Gertrude as his daughter to all who had any claim to an explanation of any proceedings of his--the number was satisfactorily small--and he would leave England for ever, with Gertrude. It was wonderful with how strong and irresistible a voice Nature was now speaking to the old man's heart; how all the habits and conventionalities of his life seemed to be dropping suddenly away from him, and something new, but far more powerful, establishing itself in their stead as a law of his being. The tremendous truth and extent of his responsibility as regarded Gertrude presented themselves to him now in vivid reality, and the strongest desire of his heart was for strength, skill, and patience, to carry out the plan which presented itself for her benefit. He felt no anger towards her for what she had done. Poor motherless, fatherless, unprotected girl, how was she to understand the moral aspect of such a deed? He pitied the folly, but he did not seriously regard the guilt, while he deplored the consequences. Gertrude's professional career, he saw at once, must come to an immediate and abrupt close. There was no safety for her in the terrible unexplained attitude of the brothers Challoner, and her total unconsciousness of it and its bearing upon her own fate, but absence from the scene of the secret drama. With the grief of her hopeless, impossible love at her heart, and with the help and safety of her new-discovered relationship to him, security for her future and escape from the present, Gertrude would not hesitate about abandoning her career as a singer. It had never had for her the intoxicating delight and excitement with which such a success is invested for the fortunate few who attain it; and as for the world, the lapse of the brilliant star from the operatic firmament would be a nine-days' wonder, and no more, like such other of the episodes of her story and his as the world might come to learn. That part of the business hardly deserved, and certainly did not receive, more than the most passing consideration from Lord Sandilands. It was all dreadfully painful, and full of complications which involved infinite distress; but Lord Sandilands began to see light in his difficult way. It was not until he had thought long and anxiously of Gertrude and of Miles that his mind turned in the direction of Gilbert Lloyd; and then it was with inexpressible pain that he contemplated the fact that this man, whom of all men he most abhorred, was the husband of his daughter; had had the power to make her girlhood miserable, to blight her life in its bloom, and to continue to blight it to the end. How great a villain Gilbert Lloyd was, he alone knew; but no doubt Gertrude had had considerable experience of his character. On this point he would find out all the truth by degrees. His thoughts glanced for a moment at the probable effect it would have on Lloyd when he should discover that the one man in the world in whose power he was, was the father of his wife, and had constituted himself her protector. At least there was one bright spot in all this mass of misery: knowing this, Lloyd would never dare to molest Gertrude, would never venture to seek her or trouble her, in any straits, however severe, to which his unprincipled life might drive him. In this perfectly reasonable calculation there was but one item astray: Lord Sandilands had no suspicion of the state of feeling in which Gilbert Lloyd now was with respect to his wife. If he had known the fierce revival of passion for her, and the rage which filled his baffled and desperate heart, Lord Sandilands would not have looked with so much confidence upon the prospect of suffering no molestation from Lloyd. Whether his tigerish nature could ever be wholly controlled by fear, was a question to which no answer could yet be given. But Lord Sandilands did not ask it, and his thoughts had again reverted to Miles, and were dwelling sadly on the caprice of fate which had brought his brother once more so fatally across his track, and had erected so strange a link between the calamity which had overshadowed his dead friend's life and that which must now be the abiding sorrow of his own, when the arrival of the doctor interrupted his musings, and obliged him to confess to being awake.
When the visit was concluded, with a favourable report but many cautions on the part of the medical attendant, Lord Sandilands inquired of Mrs. Bush when the arrival of the two ladies might be looked for. They had already sent to ask how his lordship was, and would be there at eleven. Lord Sandilands then bethought him that the recognition of the preceding day, which had no doubt led to his receiving his daughter's confidence, and being preserved from blindly pursuing a course of persuasion and advocacy of Miles Challoner's suit, which might have led to most disastrous consequences, could now be made still more useful, as affording him an opportunity of learning more about his daughter's married life than she had had time or probably inclination to tell him.
The old man looked very weak and curiously older all of a sudden, and Mrs. Bush, a kind-hearted woman in her narrow little way, was sorry to see the change. The sympathy in her manner and voice inspired Lord Sandilands with a resolution somewhat similar to that one which Gertrude had noted on the previous day. He asked Mrs. Bush to take a seat, requested her best attention to what he was going to say, and then told her without any circumlocution that the lady called Grace Lambert, whom she had known as Mrs. Lloyd, was his daughter, whom he intended to acknowledge and to take abroad with him. The housekeeper showed very plainly the astonishment which this communication occasioned her, and her embarrassment was extreme when Lord Sandilands continued: "And now, Mrs. Bush, I wish you to tell me all you know about my daughter, and all that occurred while Mr. Lloyd, from whom she separated immediately afterwards, lodged at your house at Brighton."
"Of course, my lord," replied Mrs. Bush, in a nervous and hesitating manner, "I cannot refuse to do as your lordship wishes, nor do I wish so to do; but Mrs. Lloyd did not lodge at my house at all in a manner; she only came there unexpected, and went away at night, after the poor gentleman died, as were took so sudden--dear, dear, how sudden he were took, to be sure!"
"What gentleman? I don't understand you. Pray tell me the whole story, Mrs. Bush; don't omit any particulars you can remember; it is of great importance to me."
Mrs. Bush possessed no ordinary share of that very common gift of persons of her class--circumlocution, and she told her story with a delightful sense of revelling in the fullest details. Her hearer, not under ordinary circumstances distinguished for patience, neither hurried nor interrupted her, but, on the contrary, when he asked her any questions at all, put to her such as induced her to lengthen and amplify the narrative. When the housekeeper took her seat beside his bed, Lord Sandilands had been lying with his face towards her. As she progressed in her account of the sojourn of Gilbert Lloyd and Harvey Gore at her house, he turned away, and lay towards the wall against which his bed was placed, so that at the conclusion of the story she did not see his face. Ashy pale that face was, and it bore a fixed look of horror; for, bringing his own secret knowledge of Gilbert Lloyd to bear upon the story told by the housekeeper, Lord Sandilands readily divined what was that swift, unaccountable illness of which Lloyd's friend had died, what the irresistible power his wife had wielded in insisting upon the separation which had taken place. "The wretched girl! What must she not have suffered!" the father thought. "Alone, in the power of such a man, in possession of such a secret, whether by positive knowledge or only strong suspicion, no matter. Good God, what must she not have suffered! What has she not yet before her to suffer!"
Here, as he afterwards thought, in reflecting upon the unconscious disclosure which Mrs. Bush had made to him--here was another barrier against any possible molestation of Gertrude by her husband, a horrible truth to grasp at with something like ghastly satisfaction. But horrible truths were all around them in this miserable complication, on every side.
"Thank you," said Lord Sandilands, when Mrs. Bush had concluded her narrative. "I am much indebted to you for telling me all these particulars. You will oblige me very materially by not mentioning the subject in any way to anyone."
Mrs. Bush was aware that Lord Sandilands not only possessed the means but the inclination to make it very well worth anyone's while to oblige him, so she immediately resolved upon maintaining undeviating fidelity to the obligation he imposed upon her; and she afterwards kept her resolution, which she found profitable.
When Gertrude arrived, Mrs. Bush met her with a request that she would go to his lordship at once, which implied that Mrs. Bloxam was to remain in the drawing-room. This she did, composedly occupying herself with needlework, and feeling her hopes that she should be entirely overlooked in the crisis of affairs growing stronger and stronger. It may as well be said here, once for all, that these hopes were justified. Mrs. Bloxam was never called to account by Lord Sandilands for his money, or her own conduct.
"I take it upon myself, my dear," said Lord Sandilands to his daughter, when many hours passed in close and mournful consultation between them had gone by; "as soon as I am able to move--and, you see, I am greatly better already--the arrangements shall all be made."
From the bed where he lay, the old man's eyes were turned anxiously, sadly, towards the figure of his daughter. Gertrude was seated in a deep chintz-covered chair, in the bay of the window, which overlooked a small garden of the sterile and sandy order, familiar to the memory of occasional dwellers in seaside lodging-houses. She was leaning forward, her head resting on her hands, her arms supported by a little three-legged table, her attitude full of grace and dejection. The afternoon sun tinged her pale cheek and her clustering hair, but for the moment the brilliance that was so characteristic of her appearance was gone. But she touched the old man's heart all the more keenly for the lack of brilliancy, for she was more like her mother without it,--the dead mother whom she had never seen, and whose name had as yet been barely mentioned between them.
"Yes," she said absently, drearily, "I must leave it all to you. How strange it is to me to know that I have you to help me, to leave it all to!"
"You will not pine for the excitement and applause to which you are so accustomed, Gertrude?"
"No; they have been very wearisome to me of late, since I have known how much might have been mine that never can be now."
"No indeed, my dear," said her father earnestly, "it never, never can be now; and your true courage, your true good sense is in acknowledging this at once, and consenting to turn your back upon it all promptly. You shall have none of the misery of severing these ties; I will write to Munns, and tell him I am ready to indemnify his real or imaginary losses."